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In the square courtyard the fountain still leaped and splashed, the Moorish 
lanterns still burnt dimly between the arches, while Ali, with moans and cries 
of affection, knelt over his brother.— Page 56. The Green Turbans. 


THE GREEN TURBANS 


A NOVEL 


By J. MacLAREN COBBAN 



“ Give me a nook and a book, 

And let the proud world spin round.” 


A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, 
52-58 DUANE STREET, NEW YORK ^ 





OLa. ff. '9”-^ 
01>SS CL XXo No. 

^/ 12 ^ 

COPY B. 


!F^v. 


Copyright, 1902. By A. L. BURT COMPANY. 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 
By J. MacLaren Cobban. 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


CHAPTER I. 

HOW THE DOCTOR FOUND IN HIS HOUSE A YOUNG 
MOOR WITH A PRICE ON HIS HEAD. 

‘^Thou accursed Christian! May Allah burn thy 
great-grandmother in the fires of Hell! There is 
not a corner of Fez, nor any part of the land of 
the Moors, that is free from thee and thy like !’’ 

The speaker was a filthy Moorish beggar, with a 
remarkably swarthy goat- face of the lowest Arab 
type. He had been spread asleep in the dust, cov- 
ered with a dirty white cotton garment like a sheet ; 
and the passing mule had stumbled against his half- 
buried foot. He leaned upon his elbow to curse, and 
revealed the upper part of a brawny body, quite 
bare. The person he cursed, who was seated on 
the mule, was plainly an Englishman, and young. 
For coolness, he wore over a flannel shirt a loose 
grey alpaca coat, and on his head a wide-brimmed 


4 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


Panama hat ; and yet he wilted and panted in the 
intolerable heat. It was too much exertion to do 
more than lift a drooping eyelid at the cursing 
Moor, although he quite understood the terrible 
things the rascal uttered : he had heard such curses 
often before, and they had no effect on him. So 
he and his mule passed on, the creature shuffling 
softly and drowsily through the dust. 

‘‘Hold up, Hamed!” he murmured to the mule, 
and gave a gentle tug at the rein. The mule 
answered the tug by raising his head a few inches ; 
and then, the moment after, he let it hang again 
and sway before his knees. 

The young man continued his way, and presently 
entered a narrow alley, which was encumbered with 
filth and offal of all kinds, from decaying vegetable 
refuse to dead dogs and cats, and even dead babies. 
This was the mart for second-hand clothing — the 
Petticoat-lane of the city — and the shops were like 
large cupboards in the dirty, cracking walls, on the 
lower shelf of which the shopkeeper squatted with 
his goods about him. The light was dim in that 
stinking alley; for there were continuous awnings 
of withered boughs and tattered stuff overhead, 
through which the afternoon sunlight fell in streaks 
and blotches. The shopkeepers were idle and 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


5 


drowsy; but, at sight of the Englishman, they 
looked up with the ferocious glare of bloodthirsty 
beasts, and, in deep murmurs, cursed his great- 
grandmother for all she was worth. Naked chil- 
dren, too, sprang from unknown corners, flung 
handfuls of dirt, spat, and cursed as potently as 
their elders. They would even have sprung like 
cats upon the Englishman and his mule, had he 
not quietly pointed at them now and again a little 
thing with trumpet-shaped ends. At that, with 
terror on their fierce little faces, they tumbled over 
each other in their haste to get out of the line of 
the magic wand — which was, in truth, nothing but 
a doctor’s stethoscope. 

‘‘Ya!” they yelled. “He is a devil! He is 
Sheitan! He is an infidel magician!” 

They knew him as a doctor; and the skill of the 
Christian doctor is always associated in the Moorish 
imagination with the power of deadly magic. That 
was why the doctor ventured to ride out alone, 
instead of with a protecting company of armed ser- 
vants or soldiers. 

Out of that nauseous tunnel he turned into an 
equally narrow lane between two high walls, cracked 
and scarred, and marked at intervals with window- 
slits, like loop-holes; for all Moorish houses have 


6 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


their backs to the streets. Here, shuffling softly on 
in the thick dust, he came unexpectedly upon a lady 
on a mule, shuffling softly the other way. Her form 
and face, all save the eyes, were muffled and veiled 
in the native fashion, so that he did not at once 
recognize her. But his eye lighted on the grinning 
negro soldier who accompanied her, and he knew 
him : he was one of his brother’s guards. The lady, 
then, must be his sister-in-law, his brother’s wife. 

“Hallo, Molly!” said he.' “Where are you going 
alone, in this heat ?” 

Molly, his brother’s wife, was not taken by sur- 
prise; for it had been quite easy for her to recog- 
nize her brother-in-law a long way off. 

“Yes,” said she; “it is a nuisance, isn’t \ty. to 
have to come out like this? But I promised to take 
tea to-day with Sid Moussa’s newest wife. I shan’t 
stay long, though. Bye-bye!” And she pushed her 
mule on past him. 

The doctor stood smiling an instant, and look- 
ing after the negro soldier proudly swaggering in 
the cast-off tunic of a British soldier, bought or 
stolen from Gibraltar; and then he woke up his 
mule, and went on his way, thinking that, if he 
had been Molly, sitting cool at home, not even an 
engagement to take tea with all the wives of the 


THE GKEEN- TURBANS. ? 

Governor of Fez would have driven him forth into 
such heat. After a little while, in another lane, 
he arrived at a small door in the blank wall, and 
rapped on it. It was opened immediately by an- 
other negro in the discarded scarlet of the British 
Army. He entered, mule and all — for he was at 
home. This was the house he had occupied ever 
since his coming to Fez some months ago to take 
care of the health of the sick Sultan. And it was 
in astonishing contrast with the meanness, the 
squalor, and the filth he had passed through on his 
way from the Sultan’s palace. It was, in truth, a 
princely mansion in the purest Moorish style. Once 
through the little door, you were in a small garden, 
shaded with rows of orange trees. Across the gar- 
den, you entered by another low door and a dark 
passage into the interior court; for all Moorish 
houses are built round a central court. And behold 
the court ! Around it were twelve pilasters of white 
stucco, decorated with colored arabesques, con- 
nected with light, fretted arches of the Moorish 
horse-shoe shape, and supporting an arched gallery. 
The pavement was laid with tiny squares of enamel 
of brilliant colors that formed intricate patterns; 
and in the midst. a fountain played into a basin in 
which swam gold and silver fish, and from the 


B 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


middle of each arch depended a Moorish lantern. 
The court was open to the sky ; so it was airy, cool, 
fragrant, and deliciously soothing, with the sound 
of plashing water. On one side of the court you 
might pass into a large, neglected garden; and on 
the other sides you entered the dwelling, sleeping, 
and reception-rooms of the mansion, all of which 
were richly decorated with arabesque work, and 
furnished with divans, cushions, and carpets, and 
innumerable little Moorish tables, some of which 
the Englishman used as stools, because there were 
no chairs. 

In a large and dim reception-room, with one side 
almost entirely open to the court, the doctor found 
his brother. Captain Neale, who had come from 
Tangier with the English Mission then in Fez, at 
the head of which was the English Ambassador. 
But, besides his brother, he saw two young men in 
Moorish dress. Both were of distinguished and 
handsome appearance; each wore a green turban, 
which is, in Morocco, the distinctive mark of a 
Shereef — of one, that is, who claims descent from 
the Prophet Mohammed. Their presence made the 
doctor stare, and exclaim in astonishment. With 
his eye on the slighter, and apparently the younger 
of the two Moors, he spoke in English, saying: 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


9 


''By all that’s desperate! What are you doing 
here? Don’t you know there’s the value of five 
thousand pounds of English money set on your 
head?” 

"Cousin of my heart,” said the young man, speak- 
ing in Moghrebbin — which is the common or vulgar 
Arabic of Morocco — "well do I know that! Has 
not the Sultan of Marakesh published it through 
all the land? My fierce brother, Ali and I, Cousin 
Tabeeb [doctor], have ventured to ride into Fez 
— to within a step of the lion’s mouth — and have 
claimed your hospitality, cousin of the curing touch.” 

"Cousin Mohammed,” said the doctor, also in 
Moorish, "it is a terrible risk you run!” 

"If our most renowned cousin, Richard Neale, 
Physician and Surgeon to the Commander of the 
Faithful, his Shereefian Highness the Sultan, the 
descendant of a Tafilet slave that usurps the shade 
of the sacred umbrella of Morocco — if our cousin,” 
said the big brother, puffily, "thinks that we will 
ruin his hopes of advancement by staying in his 
house, we will go. Brother Mohammed!” 

"What a touchy beast it is!” said the doctor, 
turning to his brother. Captain Neale, and speaking 
in English, because the captain’s knowledge of Moor- 
ish was slight. 


10 THE GEEEN TUEBAI^S. 

‘‘Peppery as ever/^ said the Captain, “but a good 
chap.’’ 

“How 'long have they been here?” asked the 
doctor. 

“About two hours,” was the answer. 

Then Ali, understanding the English but little, 
and thinking the doctor was grumbling at him and 
his brother, was stung to angrier offence. He 
sprang lightly to his feet, despite his squatting 
position. 

“Dear Brother Mohammed,” said he, fiercely, “our 
cousin, the Tabeeb of the accursed Sultan, is weary 
of our presence! We are on his hands like hot 
cakes! Let us go!” 

Then the doctor called him names in picturesque 
Moorish. “You big, burning son of a box of 
tinder! You cross-bred lucifer! You English stick 
with a head of Moorish phosphorus!” (The 
young man was of a very red complexion.) “Sit 
down and listen to the words of wisdom that shall 
drop from my mouth!” And, under that over- 
whelming outburst, Ali squatted down again on the 
divan. “I wish to discover how to keep you from 
harm,” continued the doctor. “Now cousins both, 
listen and answer. Have you come here to escape 
pursuit ?” 


THE GKEEH TURBANS. 


11 


‘‘Nay, cousin doctor,’’ answered Ali, “never, never 
would we ” 

“Cousin Ali,” said the doctor, “the question is 
answered, and words are precious. On what busi- 
ness, then, have you come?”’ 

“Mohammed is sick,” said Ali, somewhat sulkily. 
“He may be dying. And that is as true as Allah.” 

“What say you?” said the doctor, in a quicker 
and more sympathetic accent. “Are you ill, Mo- 
hammed? Come into the light. Let me look at 
you. What is your feeling?” 

“I feel, cousin of my heart,” said Mohammed, 
coming forward, “as if living creatures were gnaw- 
ing and eating the marrow of my bones, and I 
have come, cousin, in the hope that you will doctor 
me.” 

“Certainly I will,” said the doctor, and proceeded 
to diagnose his ailment. “My very dear Moham- 
med,” said he, after a little while, “all your fine 
plans for the benefit of the Moors and the over- 
throw of the Bashas must be laid on the shelf for a 
little while, with yourself, for you must go to bed, 
cousin.” He turned to his brother and said : “It’s 
a pity Molly has gone out; she might have helped 
us.” 

“Has she gone out ? I didn’t know,” said Captain 

Neale. 


12 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


^^Yes, I met her,” said the doctor. Then he turned 
again to Ali and asked : “Did anyone see you enter 
this house, cousin?” 

“No one at all, cousin doctor,” answered Ali. 

“By what ways did you come?” 

“I will tell you, cousin,” said Ali. “This is the 
truth from the beginning : We met with a caravan 
from Oudjda, and joined ourselves to it about 
thirty miles hence, giving ourselves out to be 
wandering shereefs on our way to Mequinez. 
When we came to Fez the caravan entered while 
we went on, as if to go to Mequinez. But we 
turned aside and entered the city by the gate which 
is not far from your garden wall, and here we 
came and entered unseen by any.” 

That explanation satisfied the doctor, whose 
anxiety for the safety of his guests then slackened. 
He settled Mohammed in his own bed, and then, 
in the cool half-hour before the sun should plump 
below the horizon (for in Morocco the sun does not 
gently set as in England), the doctor and Ali, and 
his brother and his brother’s wife — who had re- 
turned from her tea-drinking with the newest spouse 
of the Governor of Fez — went and sat upon the 
flat roof of the house, which is the usual place for 
an evening lounge in the land of the Moors. From 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


13 


their elevated position they looked far abroad upon 
the ancient and famous city of Fez, which was once 
one of the greatest and most enlightened of Arab 
cities, with colleges and libraries, whither flocked 
the scholars of Europe, but which is now one of 
the meanest, filthiest, and most fanatical cities on 
the face of the earth. Fez looks white; but it is 
with the white of stucco or of whitewash, not of 
marble. It is, in truth, a whited sepulchre crum- 
bling to decay, like a neglected pile of ill-baked bricks 
in a brickyard. While the doctor and his brother 
smoked, Ali talked sadly (Molly, the Captain’s wife, 
was sympathetic) of his elder brother, Mohammed, 
whom he adored, but who was bent on ruining him- 
self and all his kindred with his dreams of reform 
among the Moors. 

‘‘But the Moors,” said he, “are all pigs, and 
dogs, asses, mules, and hyenas — anything but what 
is noble or courageous, like a horse or a lion, or 
even a man.” 

“You are a great deal of a Moor yourself, Ali, 
remember,” said the doctor. 

“It is true, doctor cousin,” said Ali. “But, by 
the favor of Allah, I hope there is more of a son 
of the English in me, as there is in Mohammed, 
than of the Moor.” 


14 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


The reason of which saying was this : Mohammed 
and Ali, although they were Moorish princes, being 
sons of the Grand Shereef of Tetuan, were also in 
deed and in truth cousins of the doctor and the 
Captain; for the Grand Shereef, who was by way 
of being a Moor without prejudice, had married a 
Miss Neale. 

Thus they talked, the doctor withdrawing once 
and again to look at his patient ; and then darkness 
fell, as with the sudden putting out of lights, and 
the cry of the mueddin droned through the air from 
the tops of the mosques, bidding all the faithful en- 
gage in prayer. ''Allah! Allah iW -Allah! Allah- 
Akhbar!” ^‘God is great! Bend, ye faithful, bend 
in prayer !” it seemed to say. 

The cry was yet lingering in the air, and en- 
gaging the ear, when there came . a new sound — 
the soft thud of horses’ hoofs in the thick dust of 
the lane — of many hoofs — of more and more. They 
came to a halt, and the three men fell silent and 
looked on each other in ^deadly alarm. There 
sounded a hammering on the outer door. 

‘^Good God!” cried the doctor, in English, 
starting to his feet. ‘^They’ll get in ! They are in ! 
There’s time to bring Mohammed up. Stay here,” 
he said in Moorish to Ali. ‘^You can do no good 
by coming down.” 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


15 


So while Ali with Molly remained still and silent 
on the roof, the doctor and his brother passed swiftly 
down the little staircase to find Mohammed. The 
court below was filling with soldiers in turbans, 
big negroes of the Sultan’s bodyguard, who were 
chattering loudly, and flashing lanterns around. 
The doctor hastened on. Arrived at his own bed- 
side, he gave Mohammed a quick scrutiny by the 
light of the lamp which he had placed there some 
minutes before. 

‘'We must carry him,” said he to his brother. 

“Then I will,” said the Captain. “I’m stronger 
than you, and he’s light enough. Besides, there’s 
no room for us both along there.” 

So the Captain took Mohammed in his arms, who 
moaned that he could walk if they would let him, 
and with the doctor softly and swiftly leading, they 
passed out upon the gallery. Their move was 
made none too soon ; for the rooms below and on 
their level were filling with noisy soldiery. But 
escape was still possible for the two Moors, for, 
once on the roof, Mohammed and Ali both might 
be dropped on the outer side into the dark and 
tangled garden. 

The perilous part of their passage to the roof was 
along that gallery which looked upon the court. 


16 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


and which was not many feet above the heads of 
the crowd of soldiers. The greater part of it was 
accomplished when a raised lantern in the hands 
of a prying soldier revealed the Captain with the 
sheet-wrapped form of Mohammed in his arms. 
Then there was a clamor. “Lo, there! There he 
is!” and a command in the Moorish speech. 

‘‘Halt there! Or I fire!” 

“Down with you! Crouch!” cried the doctor. 

But the Captain held on, saying: “What does 
the nigger say? I don’t understand his cursed 
lingo!” 

At the same instant came the explosion of a shot. 

The Captain gasped, “My God!” stopped, reeled, 
and — before the doctor could do anything to hinder 
— crashed through the wooden railing of the gallery 
and fell into the court, with Mohammed still in 
his arms; while from the roof there sounded the 
horrified shriek of a woman, and the deep, raging 
cry of a man. 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


17 


CHAPTER 11. 

HOW ALI RESOLVED TO GO TO THE SULTAN. 

In another second the doctor had swung himself 
from the gallery down into the court. 

“Stand away!” said he, in Moghrebbin; and all 
the soldiers obeyed, for they knew him. A clear 
space was left around the two bodies, and a big 
mulatto officer, who appeared to be the Kaid, or 
Captain, of the troop. The Kaid waited in silence, 
while the doctor examined his brother, who was 
quite dead (in his fall he had flung out and hit his 
head upon the rim of the basin of the fountain, so 
that at the moment it was difficult to tell whether 
he was dead of a broken skull or by the gun-shot), 
and then he turned to the half-stunned Mohammed. 
He aided him to s ' up. 

“Ai !” said Mohammed, looking around him in a 
half-dazed fashion, and noting the soldiers, “it is 
me they seek, is it not, cousin of my heart? There 


18 THE GREEH TURBANS. 

is an end. Alas ! my poor people ! But the will of 
Allah be done.” 

“Hush!” murmured the doctor. Then he stood 
up, and gave his attention to the mulatto Kaid, who 
still deferentially waited, because, by the beard of 
the Prophet! this was no less a person than the 
Sultan’s own Tabeeb, and a dealer in magic, to 
boot. “Wherefore,” demanded the doctor, indig- 
nantly, “have ye broken into my peaceful house, 
like thieves in the night?” 

“By command of our lord the Sultan, whom 
Allah preserve!” said the Kaid, producing a bit of 
sealed parchment, and pressing it with reverence to 
his forehead. 

“And what is the Sultan’s command, son of a 
Kaid?” asked the doctor. 

“It is, Sidi Tabeeb, to find and bring the young 
man who is known as Sidi Mohammed Shereef, 
eldest son and heir of his Saintliness the Grand 
Shereef and Lord of Tetuan.” 

“And where is he ?” asked the doctor. 

“Lo, Sidi Tabeeb,” answered the Kaid, with a 
broad grin, “here he is!” 

“You know him, then?” said the doctor. 

“Never before, Sidi Tabeeb, has the sight of him 
refreshed my eyes,” said the Kaid ; “but well I know 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


19 


this is he. I must take him away to our lord the 
Sultan’s presence.” 

‘‘But he is very sick,” said the doctor. “You see 
he has but come from his bed.” 

“Well or ill, Sidi Tabeeb,” said the Kaid, “I 
must take him, or pay with my head.” 

At that he made a motion with his hand, and two 
soldiers instantly sprang upon Mohammed. 

Resistance, in such a case, the doctor knew, would 
be the extreme of folly and madness. He stood 
back a step. The soldiers were eager to bind their 
prisoner; but he said, with great gentleness and 
dignity : 

“What need is there to bind a weak, sick man? 
I will go with you.” 

“Tell me this one thing, Kaid,” said the doctor; 
“how did you or the Sultan know that he was 
here?” 

“Nothing, Sidi Tabeeb, is hid from our lord the 
Sultan,” said the Kaid; and that was all he would 
say. 

And so, with little more ado, Mohammed was 
carried off prisoner, and set upon a horse of one of 
the soldiers. And the doctor saw him go, with 
rage and resentment in his heart; but his rage and 
resentment, he knew, he must keep down, for to 


20 


THE GREEX TURBAN'S. 


defy the Sultan's authority, and in fanatical Fez 
of all places, would only bring destruction upon 
himself and those in his house, and perhaps even 
upon the English Mission which was then in the 
city. Then, in a new turn of feeling, he thought of 
his widowed sister-in-law. While he could not be 
too thankful that neither she nor Ali had appeared, 
he wondered why they had not. 

Leaving his terrified servants to look upon the 
form of his dead brother, the doctor hurried up to 
the roof. He felt that he had passed through a 
year of feeling since he had come from there, 
though he knew that the actual time could be no 
more than a few minutes. He found the little door 
that opened upon the roof shut fast. He tapped 
on it ; but his tapping was not heeded. He listened, 
and heard the voice of Molly, his sister-in-law. 

‘T will not! I will not!” she was saying, in a 
passionate voice. 'Tt is too bad as it is! I will 
not see any more horrible deaths! Would your 
dying bring alive those that are dead? I will not 
let you pass !” And that she protested over and over 
again. “I will not let you pass! No, I won't!” 

The doctor rapped more loudly, and called : ‘Tt’s 
me, Molly!” 

'Then the door was opened, and Molly stood 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


.21 


panting. She was a fair, plump, pretty little 
woman^ with the full, timid eyes of a fawn, although 
it was evident she could be resolute and courageous 
when occasion demanded. 

“You know what has happened, Molly?” said 
the doctor. 

“Is he dead?” asked Molly, with her hands tight 
on her bosom. 

“Yes; he is,” answered the doctor. 

“Oh, dear, dear me!” moaned Molly, with her 
fingers pressed upon her eyes. “I saw him fall! 
It was horrible!” 

“Would you like to come down and see him 
now?” asked the doctor. “In this hot climate, 
you know ” 

His meaning was plain, without his saying more. 

“Oh, no, Richard!” she said, with a shudder. 
“No! I can’t see him! I can’t! It would be too 
horrible !” 

The doctor wondered a little that she, who had 
seemed so courageous a moment ago, and who had 
always appeared so fond of her husband, 
should refuse to look upon that husband now, even 
for an instant, although he was dead and disfigured. 

“Won’t you give him just one last look, Molly?” 
he urged. 


22 


THE GREEl^ TURBAXS. 


“No, Richard, I won’t !” she cried, in a strenuous- 
ness of terror. “Please, don’t ask me! Nothing 
will induce me! It will be far nicer, too, won^t it, 
to remember him only as he was — strong, and hand- 
some, and beautiful?” 

The doctor desisted from pressure; but he said 
to himself that there was no' understanding the 
subtle movements of a woman’s mind — when she 
has one. But she has one oftener than a simple- 
minded doctor may think : he is too commonly taken 
up with the troubles of the body to concern him- 
self much with the workings of the mind. 

With the innate politeness of the well-bred Moor, 
Ali, gathering that the doctor talked of his brother, 
forbore to interrupt, despite his impatience to hear 
of his own brother. But when the doctor fell silent, 
then he broke in. 

“And Mohammed, Cousin Tabeeb? What of 
him?” he asked, in his Moorish speech. “Doth he 
also lie dead below?” 

“Mohammed, Cousin Ali,” answered the doctor, 
sadly, “is the Sultan’s prisoner ; he has been carried 
oR by the soldiers.” 

Then Ali turned upon Molly in a paroxysm of 
fury, and overwhelmed her with reproaches, of 
which, fortunately, it was only the sound that ter- 


THE GEEEN TURBAN'S. 23 

rified her, for she failed to understand the words 
fully. 

“Woman, he cried, “what had you to do with 
me to keep me from my brother? What have I 
done to you that you should be my enemy, and 
defeat the dearest desire of my heart — even to die 
for my brother? He was young, weak, my dear 
brother Mohammed — more beautiful and tender to 
me than a man’s first bride ! And you ! — you white, 
smiling, accursed devil! — you have separated me 
from him!” 

“Come, Cousin Ali! Silence! This is folly — 
madness!” said the doctor. 

“Ai, my English cousin!” cried Ali. “You have 
not this molten fire of the Moor coursing and burn- 
ing in your veins!” 

“Tell him,” said the trembling Molly, “that it is 
surely better he should still be alive and free to go 
on with his brother’s work ; and tell him that, after 
all, his brother is only a prisoner — he’s not dead. 
Tell him that, Richard.” 

Richard hung silent a moment, as if hesitating 
to tell him “that.” But Ali demanded to be told. 

“What does she say?” he asked. 

The doctor told him. 

“And what,” cried Ali, “is Mohammed’s work 


24 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


without Mohammed? It was my brother I loved, 
not his work! Oh, my heart is very sore for my 
brother ! Would to God I were with him, wherever 
he is! Yes, I shall be with him! I shall go and 
find him, even in the presence of the Fileli usurper, 
him you call the Sultan! And know you,” he de- 
manded, turning again fiercely upon Molly, *'what 
it means to be your Sultanas prisoner? It means 
that my brother is at your Sultan’s mercy! It 
means that your Sultan will play with him as a cat 
plays with a bird before he eats him up! That is 
to be your Sultan’s prisoner! I forgive you that 
you do not know !” 

The doctor, at Molly’s demand, faithfully trans- 
lated ; and it showed to what a pass she was reduced 
that she found nothing to say but : 

‘‘He’s not my Sultan!” 

“Yes,” said Ali; “ai! ai! It would have been 
far better that my brother had died here with me, 
fighting your Sultan’s soldiers!” 

“Cousin Ali,” said the doctor, losing patience, 
“you roar like the veriest moon-calf seeking his 
mother! What is your loss to mine — to hers? I 
have a brother dead — dead to save your brother! 
You have a brother living — even though a prisoner ! 
And a living dog is better than a dead lion!” 


THE GREEH TURBANS. 


26 


“Cousin Dr. Richard/^ said Ali, stooping on the 
impulse and pressing the doctor’s hand to his fore- 
head, “you speak the words of wisdom. I forget! 
I am a pig — a beast filled with the hot rancor of 
ingratitude! But, cousin of my heart, I am truly 
enraged with myself, because it was I that brought 
Mohammed here — compelled him to come — to be 
cured by you I” 

“Listen to me calmly, Ali,” said the doctor. 
“The hospitality of my house is a sacred thing, and 
not even the Sultan shall break in upon it without 
question. At once I shall go to Sir Edward, our 
English Ambassador, and urge him to interfere with 
the Sultan; for both Mohammed and you are half- 
English. But first I should like to have a notion 
how the Sultan knew you were here.” 

To emphasize it, he said it both in Moorish and 
in English. 

“Oh, what can that matter?” moaned Molly. 

They did not heed her moan. 

“He did not know I was here,” said Ali, “or else 
the soldiers would have demanded me also; for I 
have never been separated from Mohammed.” 

“Then,” said the doctor, “you do not think that 
ye were seen entering this house?” 

“Cousin Dr. Richard,” said Ali, “no outside crea- 
ture saw us enter, not even a bird on the wall.” 


26 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


‘‘And yet, AH,'’ persisted the doctor, “your 
brother was either seen or informed upon: that is 
certain.” 

“What matters now?” said AH. “Allah will de- 
clare in his own time who has been the betrayer of 
innocent blood! Meanwhile, I go to the Sultan to 
offer myself in Mohammed’s place: I can endure 
torture better than he !” 

“That is the merest folly of madness, AH!” said 
the doctor. 

“I am mad, cousin docto)- !” said AH. “Therefore, 
hinder me not, I go.” 

“This is too horrible!” said the doctor. “I shall 
go at once to Sir Edward.” 

“And what is to become of poor me?” moaned 
Molly, when she understood his purpose. 

“I doubt, Molly,” said the doctor, “you must 
stay here. I think, my dear,” said he, with some 
severity, “the actual danger of death is more to 
be thought of than the mere funk of it. And there 
are plenty of servants about to keep you company.” 

AH and the doctor went out together : Ali to the 
Sultan’s palace, and the doctor to the palace where 
the English Ambassador was lodged. The doctor 
did not find Sir Edward at his lodging: he was 
dining at the Sultan’s palace, the servants of the 


THE GKEEI!^ TURBANS. 


27 


Embassy said; and the doctor hurried off to find 
him. It was a longish way to go on foot; but the 
moon had risen, and made everything mysteriously 
visible. When he inquired for the English Ambas- 
sador, he was referred to the Sultan’s chief Cham- 
berlain, Sidi Borghash, a white-bearded old man, 
with the keen face of a bird of prey, but the soft, 
cooing manners of a dove. 

“Welcome! Welcome! A thousand times wel- 
come, good Sidi Tabeeb!” he cooed, and pressed 
the doctor’s hand in both his. “You seek the 
Bashador? Have the goodness, most noble sidi, to 
accompany my poor feeble steps, and in process of 
time you will arrive at the Bashador.” 

The Bashador, said the old man, was dining in a 
garden pavilion; and he led on by galleries and 
cages, where the strong pungent odor told that the 
Sultan’s menagerie was kept. Then they came, by 
some way the doctor had not known before, into 
the garden. Suddenly he found himself on the brink 
of a great cemented pit, some ten feet deep, and 
forty wide and long. From the pit came a hissing 
like the subdued escape of steam. There white- 
draped figures — black soldiers in white mantles, who 
looked in the moonlight like ghosts — stalked slowly 
about the margin of the pit, while in the pit itself — 


28 


THE GEEE^T TURBANS. 


“Great God!’’ exclaimed the doctor, stuck still 
with horror. 

There, in the pit, flooded with moonlight, were 
two naked men, fastened to stakes about six feet 
apart. They were plainly fastened to the stakes by 
a big nail driven into the right hand high above the 
head, wRile the left was free to battle with the 
scores and hundreds of serpents of all sizes and 
.colors that hissed and writhed around them. T 
was a sight that held the doctor spellbound — a spell 
all the greater that in the two men he clearly recog- 
nized his cousins, Mohammed and Ali ! 


THE GKEE^ TUKBANS. 


29 


CHAPTER III. 

WHAT THE DOCTOR SAW IN THE PIT OF SERPENTS. 

The doctor stood and gazed into the horrible pit. 
His first impulse was to leap in, to beat off the ser- 
pents, and by any means — what means he knew not — 
to release the brothers from their frightful situation 
of torture. But on his first motion, as of a bird to 
fly, the old Chamberlain laid a detaining hand on 
him, and one of the white sentinels came swiftly up 
and laid a hand on him, too. 

^^Let me go!’' cried the doctor, wildly, with his 
eyes fixed on the horrors of the pit. 

“Sidi Doctor,” said the polite old Moor, ‘‘do you 
desire to die also ? What will it avail your friends in 
that pit of hissing death that you should join them ? 
Rather, haste your lingering feet that they may bring 
you to the presence of the Ambassador. Who can 
tell but that his prayers and thine may prevail on 
our lord the Sultan to recall his just sentence upon 
the rebellious brothers?" 


30 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


Yet the doctor lingered a moment longer, fas- 
cinated by what was before him. In silence he stood 
and gazed; and the sound of the writhing and rear- 
ing and hissing serpents rose to his ears like the 
simmering of a gigantic caldron. 

The shaven heads of the brothers gleamed in the 
moonlight; but, while Mohammed’s drooped upon 
his breast, Ali’s was held proudly up. Ali gave 
little heed to the serpents squirming and darting 
about himself. With a swing of his leg he would 
sweep them aside; but his attention was given to 
keeping the horrible and deadly reptiles off his 
brother. He could not reach Mohammed with his 
free hand, but gripping a snake by the throat, he 
swung it like a switch and beat off now one and 
now another that reared its obscene head against 
Mohammed. From the s wither of coiling forms the 
doctor saw the most ghastly of all venomous snakes 
— the Cerastes — rear itself to strike. There was no 
mistaking it. Of a dead, dirty- white color, and 
with two horns over its eyes, its appearance was 
most terrific and appalling. 

‘^Ah!” gasped the doctor, as the creature slowly 
raised itself before Mohammed. But Ali saw it 
too. With a swing of his snake-switch he swept the 
horrible, white, horned serpent away. At the same 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


31 


instant there appeared over Mohammed’s shoulder 
a small, black snake, which the doctor guessed to be 
that called “The Father of Swelling,” and which 
is accounted by the Moors the , most deadly of all 
serpents. With another swing of his strange switch 
Ali whipped it from its place, but at the same time 
he made his brother start under the blow. 

In that moment of seeing, the doctor had seen 
enough to fill him with horror and loathing, and he 
turned swiftly away. 

“Where is the Ambassador?” he demanded of 
the old Chamberlain. 

“The sidi has seen enough?” grinned the tooth- 
less old rascal. “Great is the terror of our lord 
the Sultan. Come, sidi.” 

“Yes,” gasped the doctor. “Your land seems 
filled with nothing but horrors and terrors.” 

“God is great,” said the old man, “and men are 
wicked; and our lord the Sultan, the Commander 
of the Faithful, is the agent of God’s justice.” 

“Even so,” said the doctor. “And who, O wise 
counsellor, is the agent in this land of God’s mercy?” 

At that the old Chamberlain smiled and gurgled, 
as if it were a good joke. 

He led on through the garden, now in a wilder- 
ness of roses, the sweet scent of which so loaded 


32 


THE GREEH TURBANS. 


the air and so overpowered the senses of the doctor 
that he was ready to weep, and then in a small 
tangled forest of orange and lemon trees. As he 
stumbled after the old Chamberlain, who appeared 
to be acquainted with every path, even the most 
neglected, of the royal garden, the doctor sighed 
and lamented to himself in the words of the old 
hymn: ‘Where every prospect pleases, and only 
man is vile !” 

By-and-by they came upon a scene which might 
have been imitated from the “Arabian Nights’ En- 
tertainments.” Overlooking an artificial lake in 
which gold and silver fish leaped and swam, and 
on which reposed a small and elegant electric yacht 
— the Sultan’s latest toy from Europe — was a gay 
pavilion lighted with colored Moorish lanterns, and 
filled with a festive company in European dress or 
in British uniforms. 

“Lo!” said the Chamberlain, coming to a halt. 
^^The Ambassador and the sons of the English who 
are of his company.” 

The doctor also paused and looked. The colored 
lights of the pavilion swam reflected in the water, 
floated steadily, or flickered into serpentine wrig- 
gles and coils, which recalled to him the horrible 
pit from which he had come. Sounds of talk and 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


33 


laughter were wafted on the scented breeze across 
the water; and to and fro, in and out of the light, 
passed lines of black slaves bearing high great cov- 
ered dishes of kous-kousoo, like small haystacks, or 
carrying piles of dirty plates. 

That was the Sultan’s banquet to the English 
special Embassy; but the Sultan himself was not' 
there. It was the etiquette of the Moorish Court 
that the Commander of the Faithful should not eat 
in company. As the doctor looked and listened, he 
felt it somewhat bitterly that these, his fellow- 
countrymen, should continue their festivity all un- 
aware of the horrors that had been, and were being, 
enacted so near at hand. His house had been out- 
raged, broken in upon, by the Sultan’s emissaries; 
his brother (who should have been sitting down 
in that very company before him) was lying dead 
in his blood; and — great Heavens! — the two noble 
brothers were still fighting naked for their lives, 
nailed to stakes in the horrid pit of serpents 1 These 
meditations occupied but a second or two. 

‘Xead on, vSidi Chamberlain,” said he to the old 
courtier. 

‘T am at the orders of the Sidi Doctor,” said the 
other, and shuffled off round the lake to approach 
the pavilion. Arrived within the circle of its light, 
the doctor went forward alone. 


34 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


‘^Holloa!’’ exclaimed the Ambassador, catching 
sight of the figure in light flannels and Panama hat. 
‘‘Can it be Dr. Neale 

“It is, Sir Edward,’’ said the doctor, stepping 
forward and taking off his hat to the company, who 
straightway all fell silent. 

“Good Heavens, man!” said Sir Edward. “You 
look upset ! Has anything happened ?” 

“There is one of your company missing, Sir 
Edward,” said the doctor. 

The Ambassador glanced quickly down the table. 

“Yes,” said he, “your brother. We thought he 
was passing the evening with you.” 

“He will pass no more evenings, Sir Edward,” 
said the doctor, “with anyone 1” 

“What! Dead?” 

“Dead?” echoed all down the table. 

“Yes; dead, sir!” answered the doctor. “Shot!” 

“Good Heavens! How did that happen?” 

The doctor told his story; and the sense of evil 
tidings so pervaded the air that even the Moorish 
slaves, who could understand no word of what was 
said, were drawn into the circle of light and stood 
stock still in wonder like black images, while the 
two or three high officials present listened acutely, 
and presently asked for an interpretation. As the 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


35 


doctor continued his story, and told of the present 
plight of the brothers, Mohammed and Ali, the 
countenances of the Ambassador and the company 
became more fixed and white, and the slaves stood 
in wider-mouthed astonishment. 

‘‘This is a very serious business,’’ said the Am- 
bassador, looking hard at his finger nails, and then 
out upon the calmly shimmering waters. “Most 
serious !” 

“We must get the poor beggars out of that 
serpent-pit at once. Sir Edward, mustn’t we?” said 
a soldier down the table. “They may be dead 
even now !” 

“They may,” said the doctor. 

“We must, we can, do nothing of the sort,” said 
Sir Edward, resolutely. “Do you remember where 
we are? Ten or a dozen of us British in the 
Sultan’s own grounds, surrounded by thousands of 
native troops and in the midst of a swarming popu- 
lation raging with fanaticism.” 

“I’d engage,” murmured the officer, “to hold the 
whole confounded palace with half a company of 
British soldiers!” 

“Yes,” said the Ambassador, almost angrily. 
“But where’s your half company ? Don’t be a fool I 
If anything is to be done, it must be by careful, 
diplomatic persuasion.” 


36 


THE GKEEN TUEBAHS. 


“Meantime, Sir Edward,’^ said the doctor, “the 
diplomatic persuasion of the serpents may have 
anticipated you.” 

“I can’t help that,” said Sir Edward. “Em not 
God Almighty! I don’t hold Sultans and serpents 
in the hollow of my hand! Why the dickens,” he 
cried, slapping the table, “must those two boys go 
rebelling against their Sovereign?” 

“I believe, Sir Edward,” said the doctor, craftily, 
“it’s the English blood in them.” 

“By George!” exclaimed the officer down the 
table, “if I were a native of this confounded ole-clo’, 
down-at-heel country, I’d rebel a hundred times a 
week !” 

“Yes,” said Sir Edward, “they are, of course, 
half English; but, all the same, they are only subjects 
of the Sultan. Well,” he added, of a sudden, “I’ll 
try and get an audience of the Sultan.” 

He rose, while the Moorish officials looked 
expectant; he tightened his mouth grimly under 
his grey moustache, and said to the doctor, “Yes; 
and you’d better come along, too.” He went 
and laid a persuasive hand upon the master of the 
ceremonies. 

“Sidi Morghem,” said he, softly, to the official, 
“the wise, prudent, and famous Sidi Doctor has 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


37 


a word of joy and a draught of comfort to 
administer to your lord the Sultan, whom Allah 
preserve! Give yourself the trouble of leading 
the way, and us the unutterable privilege of follow- 
ing in your steps.” 


38 


THE GKEEN TUKBAN8. 


CHAPTER IV. 

IN THE sultan's PRESENCE. 

The Ambassador was risking a great deal in 
thus seeking out the Sultan at that late hour. We in 
Europe, and especially in England, may think very 
little of the Sultan of Morocco now that his king- 
dom has become so shabby, so disreputable, and so 
weak; but still he is the head of what was once a 
great and powerful Empire; he is the only Moham- 
medan Sovereign of any account in Africa, and, as 
a descendant of the Prophet, and the African head 
of the Mohammedan faith, he believes himself with- 
out a peer in the whole world. He, therefore, quite 
naturally thinks it very condescending and very 
affable in himself to exchange a civil word with 
Christians — unbelievers — from Europe, however 
great their station may be ; and his people think so, 
too. It was this ignorant and half-barbarous poten- 
tate that the Ambassador was thus running the risk 
of deeply offending by visiting him unbidden, and 


THE GREEN THEBANS. 


30 


at that improper hour. ‘ Sir Edward did not, of 
course, care a pin’s point on his own account, if 
the Sultan should be angry ; but he did care a great 
deal on account of his country. He had come to 
Fez on a very delicate mission, which he hoped to 
carry to a successful issue. He ought (as he told 
himself) to avoid. doing anything that might tempt 
failure in that mission, and yet there he was de- 
liberately entering upon a private enterprise which 
might provoke the Sultan’s hostility and ruin all his 
public business. But how could he sit still and 
leave the two English Moors to their horrible fate, 
without some effort to save them? He was a man 
as well as a diplomatist; and he was convinced that 
his Queen and his country would approve of his con- 
duct whatever might be the consequences. 

“Can’t you invent any pleasant reason for this?” 
said the Ambassador to the doctor. “I mean 
a reason for your own appearance. Haven’t 
you got a pill or a potion about you that you can 
say you brought in haste for him to try?” 

“No,” said the doctor; “I have nothing of the 
kind about me. I suppose. Sir Edward, you have 
nothing of the kind either?” 

“I have some smokers’ cachous,” said the Am- 
bassador. “How will they do?” 


40 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


^The very thing !’^ said the doctor. ‘They are 
small, and they look pretty. He is always conj- 
plaining of impaired virility. I’ll tell him these 
will strengthen him.” 

“But they won’t !” said the Ambassador. 

“I’m not so sure,” said the doctor; “for he’ll 
believe they will.” 

Through one elegant arched court and chamber 
after another they were ushered, ever more and 
more reluctantly, by huge black eunuchs and cham- 
berlains, scowling in self-importance, and through 
companies of armed slaves, with guns and sabres in 
their hands and daggers in their waistbands. At 
length they arrived in an elegant chamber, where 
they were bidden to wait. It was very bare, as all 
Moorish rooms are to English notions of furnish- 
ing; for it had nothing but here and there a silken 
cushion, or pile of cushions, on a divan that was 
on one side. But the fretted wall and the tessellated 
floor were exquisite in their coloring, and all was 
softly illuminated by two very beautiful Moorish 
lanterns of silver filigree, set with tinted glass. 

Presently a green brocade curtain over a horse- 
shoe doorway was swept aside. There entered a 
huge negro in a yellow-and-red garment like a 
shirt^j and bearing a great gleaming scimitar, fol- 


THE GREEK TURBANS. 


41 


lowed by a handsome, dignified, sgd-eyed man, 
dressed all in white: white robes of soft woollen 
material, and white turban. He was the Sultan. 
He carried no weapon, not even a dagger; but the 
two officers of his household who followed him 
carried about their persons a whole arsenal. 

^‘Welcome! Welcome!’’ said he, in a weary, cold 
voice, while the Ambassador and the doctor made 
courtly bows, and uttered the regular greeting: 

“May Allah prolong the days of your Highness !” 

“I would,” said the Sultan, seating himself among 
the cushions of the divan, “that Allah would shorten 
the nights. But He makes them longer than the 
days, till I cry like a child for ‘the morning light.” 

That seemed to the doctor his opportunity. He 
produced the little box of cachous which the Am- 
bassador had given him. 

“Therefore have I brought in haste, your High- 
ness,” said he, “this new medicine, of which I have 
bethought me.” 

“The knowledge and wisdom of the Sidi Doctor,” 
said the Sultan to the Ambassador, “are beyond 
comparison I” 

“If,” said the doctor, “your Highness will smoke 
a small pipe of kief, and afterwards allow one or two 
of these little globules to melt in your mouth, then. 


4a THE GEEEN TURBANS. 

by the blessing of Allah, you may have sound 
sleep.” 

‘Ts that indeed so, good Sidi Doctor?” said the 
Sultan. 

But, knowing the daily and deadly dangers amid 
which his life was passed — dangers from violent 
weapons or subtle poisons — the Sultan was suspi- 
cious of the new remedy. He held out his hand for 
the little box; and then, when he had looked at the 
cachous, and seen them shining like tiny drops of 
quicksilver, he made a crafty proposal. 

‘‘The Ambassador of the Great Queen,” said the 
Sultan, smiling, “and you, Sidi Doctor, will be 
so good as sit with me and smoke a pipe also, and 
show me how to swallow these afterwards, will you 
not?” 

Both the Ambassador and the doctor knew the 
meaning of the invitation: it was an ordinary 
courtesy which they could not refuse, to show that 
they were not seeking to poison the Sultan. And yet 
how could they thus waste time, while the two young 
Moors were still in the last extremity in that fatal 
pit? 

“Although we need nothing to make us sleep, 
your Highness,” said the Ambassador, “in the sweet 
air of the wonderful and renowned city of Fez, we 


THE GEEEN TUKBANS. 


43 


accept with joy the gracious invitation of your 
Majesty.” Whereupon one of the armed attendants 
clapped his hands, and a black slave appeared to take 
the order for pipes of kief. “But, your Majesty,” 
continued the Ambassador, “will forgive us if we 
smoke but little of the kief.” (Kief is an intoxicat- 
ing drug like opium, made from hemp.) 

“Wherefore, O Ambassador?” asked the Sultan, 
with a spark of new suspicion in his eye. 

“Because, your Majesty, our English stomachs 
are not used to so potent a drug, and we have busi- 
ness of moment yet to do.” 

The Sultan probably considered that, not the kief, 
but the strange little pillule was on its trial, and 
he said: 

“It is well. So be it. But wherefore business 
so late. Ambassador? The day is for business; the 
night is for relaxation of sleep.” 

“The business of Death, O Commander of the 
Faithful,” said the Ambassador, solemnly, “knows 
neither times nor seasons; and that is the business 
that concerns us to-night and concerns your High- 
ness also.” 

“Death? How mean you. Ambassador?” de- 
manded the Sultan, with a furrowed frown. 

“Your Majesty,” cried the doctor, the anguish 


44 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


of his loss suddenly coming over him, ^^my brother 
is dead — shot in my house by the soldiers of your 
Majesty!” 

The countenance of the Sultan gathered and 
darkened with wrath. ‘^And who, Sidi Doctor,” he 
demanded, ‘‘has dared to thus outrage the hospitality 
which I have given you ?” 

“It will be well, your Majesty,” said the Ambas- 
‘sador, “that you should now hear all the tale that 
the Sidi Doctor has to tell; for, as your Majesty 
should know, the dead brother of the Sidi Doctor 
was a soldier, and a member of my suite. This, 
your Majesty, is a serious thing that has happened. 
The Embassy of Her Majesty Queen Victoria has 
been attacked and outraged in the person of this 
soldier, the Sidi Doctor’s brother.” 

At that serious and firm tone the Sultan began to 
look troubled. He clasped and unclasped his hands, 
and said at length : “Tell your tale, Sidi Doctor.” 

The doctor then told exactly what had happened. 
His finding of Mohammed and Ali in his house — 
(“Could I, your Majesty,” he asked, “turn them 
out? They are my cousins, although they have 
offended their lord, your Highness, whom Allah 
preserve!”) — the sickness of Mohammed, and then 
the coming of the Moorish soldiery, and the capture 
of Mohammed, with the death of Captain Neale. 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


45 


‘‘This,” said the Sultan, looking more and more 
troubled — for he quite well understood how serious 
for him the British Government might make the 
death of Captain Neale — “this is the foolish, head- 
strong work of that son of a jackass, the Kaid^ who 
commanded the soldiers !” 

But the Ambassador kept him to the point. 

“Doubtless,” said he, “the Kaid but carried out 
his orders, your Majesty? Whose orders were 
they?” 

“It is true,” said the Sultan. “He must have 
received his orders from the Governor of the City, 
Sid’ Moussa.” 

“But, your Highness,” persisted the Ambassador, 
“the soldiers came from this, your own royal Palace, 
and brought their prisoner here.” 

“Then,” said the Sultan — prepared, in his usual 
way, to let anyone be blamed rather than take the 
responsibility himself — “the orders must have been 
given by my minister, the Sid’ El Helba. I will 
speak to him about it. I will scold him.” 

Just then three black slaves brought in the three 
pipes of kief. One was passed to the Sultan, and 
one to each of his visitors. A fourth slave, bearing 
a small brazier of glowing charcoal, was about to 
give a light, beginning with the Sultan. But his 


46 THE GEEEN TUKBANS. 

visitors knew that if ever he inhaled the smoke of 
the narcotic drug, their business would be at an 
end with him that night. 

‘‘Suffer me, your Majesty,” said the Ambassador, 
“to say one word more before the pipe of kief is 
put to your lips. These young men, the sons of 
the Grand Shereef of Tetuan, are condemned to a 
horrible death.” 

“They deserve to burn in the lowest deeps of 
Gehenna!” exclaimed the Sultan, in wrath. “They 
are sons of rebellion, and they lead astray the people. 
They would turn this land upside down. It is 
fit that they die!” 

“But they are young, your Majesty,” urged the 
Ambassador; “and because they are young, their 
heads are filled with foolish maggots. There are 
many such young men, your Majesty, in the land 
of the English.” 

“And does not your great Queen Victoria, or 
her ministers, put them to death ?” 

“By no means,” said the Ambassador. “They 
are left alone; they grow older; their maggots die, 
and they are as other men. The Queen of the 
English, your Majesty, will wonder and grieve when 
she shall hear that these two foolish young men are 
dead, as well as her own servant and soldier, the 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


47 


Sidi Doctor’s brother. She will wonder and grieve 
the more that they also are partly sons of the 
English; for your Majesty knows that their mother 
was a daughter of the English.” 

“You desire me, O Ambassador,” said the Sultan, 
in a flash of understanding, “to spare the lives of 
these young men!” 

“I am certain, your Majesty,” said the Am- 
bassador^ “that it will give joy to the heart of 
Queen Victoria to know that these young men have 
received your gracious forgiveness.” 

“I will tell you what I will do. Ambassador,” said 
the Sultan. “I will even do this: I will present 
them to the Sidi Doctor. They may be a compen- 
sation for the death of his brother; but he must 
send them away to the land of the English to dwell 
with the other rebellious young men who are per- 
mitted to grow old. They must no longer dwell in 
this land.” 

Then the Ambassador and the doctor both thanked 
the Sultan for his clemency. 

“Will your Highness,” said the impatient doctor, 
“permit me to go to their release? They are in 
the pit of serpents. They may be dead by now I” 

“They are in the hands of God, Sidi Doctor,” 
said the Sultan. ^Tt is necessary that you wait 


48 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


for a paper of release for them.” He gave an order 
to one of the armed attendants to go and bring 
a secretary with a parchment and an inkhorn. “And,” 
he added, smiling on the doctor, “till the secretary 
appears, we may smoke our pipe of kief, for I have 
need of sleep.” 

The doctor groaned in spirit, for he saw the 
precious moments slipping away, while Mohammed 
and Ali were still at the mercy of the serpents. 
But it was impossible to rebel against the Sultan’s 
decision, or to postpone longer the smoking of the 
pipes of kief. The waiting slave with the small 
brazier of charcoal was called forward. He took 
up a glowing coal with a pair of pincers, blew upon 
it through his black lips, and held the light for the 
Sultan; and then he did the same for the Ambas- 
sador and the doctor. 

A few whiffs of the drug are sufficient, com- 
monly, to induce stupefaction. The Ambassador 
and the doctor, who themselves blew the fumes out- 
ward (for they had no desire to sleep then), watched 
the effect upon the Sultan with the greatest anxiety. 
They both understood, without speaking of it, that 
if the Sultan succumbed to sleep then, they were 
further from their purpose than ever. The Sultan’s 
eyes were fixed on them, while his pipe glowed, and 


THE GEEEN THEBAIC'S. 


49 


thin blue smoke curled about his turban. His eye- 
lids began heavily to droop. He was sliding away 
into sleep! 

And the secretary was not come ! 

‘‘Slave!” murmured the Sultan, “another pipe. 
It soothes; it makes happy.” 

“Your Majesty!” cried the doctor, 'determined 
that the Sultan should not become unconscious if 
he could hinder it, “now is the time for the little 
silver pills.” 

“True,” said the Sultan, “the silver drops. You 
swallow first, Sidi Doctor.” 

The doctor put two cachotis in his mouth, and 
so did the Ambassador ; and then the box was handed 
to the Sultan. He had barely put his two in his 
mouth when he sank drowsily among his cushions. 

“I can't stand any more of this,” said the doctor 
aside to the Ambassador. 

He rose to his feet, passed quickly over to the 
Sultan. And no one of the attendants said him 
nay, for was he not the Sidi Doctor who had the 
health of the Sultan in his keeping? But what was 
the doctor doing? Under pretence of settling the 
Sultan better in his cushions, he secretly and deftly 
slipped the signet ring from his finger. 

“He sleeps,” he whispered to the attendants. 


50 THE GEEEH TURBANS. 

‘‘Wait ye, and watch here with him.” Then, turn- 
ing to the Ambassador, he said, in English: “Now 
Fm going to those poor wretches fighting with the 
serpents.” 

“But,” said the Ambassador, “you Have no 
authority for their release.” 

“I have,” said the doctor. “The Sultanas ring. 
That should be good enough.” 

“Good Heavens!” said the Ambassador. “What 
have you done? There will be trouble over this.” 

“I can’t help it,” said the doctor ; “I could wait no 
longer. I’m only afraid we’ve waited too long 
already.” 

They passed out and onwards through ante- 
chambers into an outer court, where they found the 
old Chamberlain waiting for them. The doctor 
showed the Sultan’s ring, and said that was for the 
release of the two young men in the serpent pit. 
The Chamberlain pressed it to his forehead, and led 
the way in all haste and in an ominous silence to 
the pit. 

As they approached they saw that the moonlight 
still flooded it, and the trees around, and the re- 
moter buildings. As they drew nearer they saw that 
the brink of the great pit was bare ; the white senti- 
nels were gone. When they got nearer still they 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


61 


gazed in silent amazement — the Chamberlain 
seemed as amazed as the Englishman— for there 
was nothing in the pit, nothing at all save the two 
stakes, to show that what the doctor had seen half 
an hour before had been more than a horrid vision. 


6 ^ 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


CHAPTER V. 

THE MYSTERY OF THE PIT. 

^‘Was it really here you saw them?’’ asked the 
Ambassador, turning a doubtful eye upon the doctor. 

‘Tn this very place!” answered Dr. Neale. ‘‘There 
are the stakes!” 

“But where are the serpents?” asked the Ambas- 
sador. The doctor helplessly shook his head; and 
the Ambassador repeated the question in Moorish to 
the Chamberlain. 

“Sidi Ambassador,” said the old man, “the master 
of the snakes has called them with music back into 
their holes” ; and he pointed to little openings with 
which the walls of the pit were honeycombed at the 
base, and which were only notable when pointed out. 

“Where then are the young men?” demanded 
Sir Edward. “They cannot be devoured ?” 

“It is not possible !” said the old man, still gazing 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 

into the pit in helpless wonder. ‘‘But they may 
have been spirited away by Djins!’' 

“Not by Djins, Sidi Chamberlain/’ laughed a 
strange voice behind them; “by an angel — a divine 
angel from the skies — a messenger from Allah!” 

They turned all three, and discovered a young 
man, elegantly made, though not very tall, with 
curled moustaches, and an odd medley of Franco- 
Moorish and French uniform. He bowed with great 
self-assurance to the Ambassador and the doctor. 
They knew him. He was a Frenchman from Algeria, 
who had come to Morocco to teach the Moors the 
use of modern artillery; he had been some years in 
the service of the Sultan, and he was commonly 
known as the Kaid (or Captain) of the moustachios. 
He was a favorite with all who knew him; and it 
was with relief and pleasure that both the Ambas- 
sador and the doctor greeted him. 

“Ah, Captain de Courcel,” said the Ambassador, 
in French, “perhaps you can tell us what has really 
happened.” 

“Oh, yes, Monsieur rAmbassadeur/' answered 
the Frenchman, with a smile and an outspreading 
of his hands, “I can tell. It is just as I have said. 
An angel came — a houri from Paradise, with a 
magic ring — and all obeyed her! The Kaid of the 


54 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


snakes called off his loathsome reptiles; and the 
men on guard descended with a ladder into the pit, 
drew out the nails fromi;he sufferers' hands, brought 
them up, and carried them away!" 

“What deuced nonsense!" exclaimed the doctor. 

“Truly, Monsieur le Docteur/^ said the French- 
man (who understood English), “it is as I have 
said. But, sir," he added, impressively, “I think 
I perceived that the angel — the houri — came from 
the house of the great Basha, the Sid' El Helba, 
and, sir, I think also you will find my little story 
true if you will go to your house; for when the 
two sufferers were put into the litter — yes, sir, there 
was a litter — I heard the angel — the houri — say to 
the attendants: ‘Take them to the house of the 
English doctor.' And there, sir, I do not doubt 
that they are." 

“Is this possible?" said the doctor, turning to 
the Ambassador. 

“Well," answered the Ambassador, “they’re not 
here ; and they may be at your house. We had better 
go and see." 

With that conclusion the doctor could not but 
agree. And in a little while the two, with four 
Moorish runners as guardian police and linkmen, 
were riding to the doctor's house. 


THE GKEEN TUKBANS. 


55 


On the way, in one of the narrow, filthy lanes, 
they came upon a litter passing in the other direc- 
tion. 

‘‘Way there!” yelled their escort. “Way, ye 
sons of dogs, for the great Basha, the Bashador of 
the English!” 

And the bearers of the litter squeezed up against 
the dirty wall to let them pass. As they went by, 
the Ambassador and the doctor noted that the 
litter was empty. That bore out the Frenchman's 
story; and they pressed on. 

Arrived at the doctor's house, an impressive and 
horrid spectacle met their gaze. In the square 
courtyard the little fountain still leaped and 
splashed, the Moorish lanterns still burnt dimly be- 
tween the arches, and the dead Captain — the doctor's 
brother — still lay where he had fallen. But a little 
way oflF on the tessellated floor Mohammed was 
outstretched, while Ali, with moans and murmurs, 
and cries of affection, knelt over his brother, now 
feeling at his heart, and now stroking and kissing 
his hand. And at the same time Molly, the widow 
of the dead Captain, stood aloof, as white and as 
rigid as the stucco pillar against which she leaned. 
The doctor went and knelt over Mohammed also, 
while Ali looked at him as if he scarcely knew him. 


56 THE GEEEN TURBANS. 

After a careful examination the doctor turned to 
Ali. 

‘‘My dear cousin/’ said he, in a voice that fought 
with emotion, ‘^come away. Mohammed will never 
speak to you again. He is dead.” 

Ali gazed at him as if he did not comprehend. 

*Toor Mohammed is dead,” repeated the doctor. 
^‘Come and let me attend to yourself: I am sure 
you must have been bitten.” 

*‘Why should I care for myself,” cried Ali, ‘Vhen 
Mohammed is dead ? Did I not live in Mohammed ?” 
Then his grief broke forth, in his own musical 
Moorish speech. ‘‘Ai, ai,” he moaned. ‘‘Lovely 
wert thou in thy life, oh, my brother, and dearer 
to me than women! They have killed thee in thy 
beautiful youth! My heart is very sore for thee, 
oh, my brother Hamed ! Thou wert sweet and won- 
derful to me! We were one, and now we are di- 
vided ! I am left alone ! Ai, ai !” After that gentle 
flow of grief, he suddenly rose to his feet, and his 
own sheet-like garment almost fell from him as he 
clasped his arms above his head. “Cursed be they 
who sought thy innocent life ! May Allah spoil their 
lives and break their hearts ! May there be none to 
pity when trouble and horror come upon them, and 
may their children die upon the dunghill, avoided 


THE GEEEH THEBANS. 57 

even by the dogs ! And cursed, beyond all cursing, 
be he who betrayed thee to thine enemies !” 

The flesh of the doctor and of the Ambassador 
crept to hear these terrific words. The doctor was 
just reaching out his hand to pacify Ali, when the 
young Moor put him aside and pointed at Molly, 
whose presence he seemed to have just noted. 

he cried. ‘‘Lo! The white witch who 
would not let me go to my brother Hamed’s help 

He sprang towards her with hands outstretched, 
as if he would seize and tear her. Molly fled 
screaming in terror, while the doctor and the Am- 
bassador threw themselves upon Ali to restrain him. 
He collapsed in their hands, trembling and foaming. 
The poison of the serpents’ bites was telling upon 
his blood and his brain. 

‘‘This is a bad business, doctor,” said the Ambas- 
sador, as they laid the poor young Moor upon the 
pavement. 


58 


,THE GKEEN TUKBANS. 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE BOY THAT KNOCKED AT THE GATE. 

The bad business took some time to mend; and 
the doctor had his hands and mind so much occupied 
that he found no opportunity to sit down and grieve 
for the deaths of his brother, the soldier, and his 
cousin, the young Moorish reformer. Ali lay a 
long while in a raging fever; and it is certain he 
would have died, in spite of his fine constitution, had 
he not been assiduously attended by the doctor, and 
nursed by Molly, who unexpectedly showed herself 
a miracle of devotion. 

But both the doctor and his sister-in-law were 
in haste to get Ali well, and to carry him and them- 
selves out of that cruel and deadly city of Fez; for 
the Sultan and his counsellors were in a dangerous 
mood, which was only kept in check by the resolu- 
tion and adroitness of Sir Edward, the English 
Ambassador. The Sultan first desired to go back 


THE GEEElSr TUEBAHS. 


59 


upon his promise to give the doctor the lives of 
Mohammed and Ali on condition of taking them 
out of the country. He declared he did not remem- 
ber giving his promise, nor his signet ring as a 
token of their pardon: nothing was said about the 
strange release of the young Moors by someone 
else, and, since the old Chamberlain and the young 
Frenchman had held their tongues about it, the 
Ambassador and the doctor did so also. But the 
Ambassador protested, and finally threatened to 
raise the whole question of the death of Captain 
Neale, which might cause the English Government 
to send an army and a fleet; and then the Sultan 
and his Ministers humbled themselves, and said 
they meant no harm; for was not England their 
very best friend, and were they not the obedient 
servants and slaves of England? 

When that matter was settled, there arose a new 
trouble. The Ambassador pointed out to the Sultan 
and his counsellors that, since they had killed Cap- 
tain Neale, the smallest amend they could make was 
to compensate his widow for her loss; and he sug- 
gested twenty-five thousand dollars as the smallest 
sum that could reasonably be offered. The Sultan 
and his advisers raised their eyes and their hands in 
amazement. 


60 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


''But, O Bashador,” said they, "the Sidi Captain's 
death was by mistake, by inadvertence. We are 
very sorry that the Captain is dead.” 

"But your sorrow,” said the Ambassador, in 
effect, "will not make the Captain alive again.” 

Then other modes of compensation were sug- 
gested. The Sultan even offered to add Molly to 
the list of his own wives rather than part with 
money. But the Ambassador pointed out that that 
was an honor an English lady could not be expected 
to appreciate, and he insisted on the dollars. It 
was not, however, until he had again threatened 
to send for ships from Gibraltar to enforce his 
demand that the Sultan agreed to pay the stipulated 
sum. 

But before these things were finally arranged 
several weeks had passed, and Ali was well on the 
way to recovery. His body was growing strong, 
but his spirit seemed dead. He would sit silent 
and brooding by the hour, his eyes vaguely follow- 
ing Molly’s movements if he were in the house, or 
gazing, if he were on the roof at eventide, away 
over the hills to that home among the northern 
mountains which was associated with his memories 
of Mohammed. The doctor was distressed and 
anxious. One evening, when he sat with Ali on 


THE GEEEN TUEBAHS. 


61 


the roof, he tried to roiise him from his torpor. He 
was surprised at the result. 

“Come, Cousin Ali,” said he, coaxingly, in the 
Moorish speech, “wake up, or you will never be of 
any use.'’ 

“I am wide awake, cousin doctor," said Ali. 

“But I mean, Ali," continued the doctor, “that 
you should wake up your spirit. Pull its loose 
strings together and tie them up. Brace yourself 
to be of good courage and hope. Remember Mo- 
hammed, and the work that he would like you to 
finish for him." 

Then a sudden change came upon Ali. He flared 
up like a fire that seems out, and has oil poured 
upon it. With burning eyes and low, but intense 
and vibrating voice, he spoke, leaning towards the 
doctor. 

“Cousin mine, you do not understand. Is it 
possible for me, do you think, ever to forget my 
Mohammed? I do not forget; but I nurse the fire 
of his life within me. What in Allah's good time I 
may do to finish all that Mohammed desired to 
do I cannot tell; but my first duty is to take com- 
plete vengeance for the destruction of my Mo- 
hammed — vengeance complete, utter, and entire, 
wanting nothing. He who calls himself the Com- 


62 


THE GREEH TURBANS. 


mander of the Faithful, the son of a slave of Tafilet, 
may wait. He is a poor, flabby toad, who is made 
to hop this way and that by the hands of his min- 
isters. He may wait, but his day will come. Next 
is he, the Sid’ El Helba, who compassed the arrest 
of my brother and the punishment. His day also 
will come. But chiefly now,” he went on, laying 
a convulsive grip on his cousin’s arm, and letting 
his voice go in thrilling tones, ‘‘my thought and 
desire are bent to discover that unknown person who 
betrayed our presence here in this house of yours, 
cousin doctor. When I have found out who that 
person is — and I shall find out — then,” he cried, 
raising his hands over his head, and his eyes to 
Heaven, “may Allah fill my heart with hatred and 
my mind with craft to work a fitting vengeance on 
that person now unknown !” 

At these words the doctor shivered. For a second 
or two he could say nothing. Then, looking around 
at the brazen sunset, at the distant lurid hills, at the 
nearer palms and fig trees, and, last of all, at the 
parapet bounding the roof on v/hich they sat, he 
shuddered and said : 

“Let us get away from this horrible place — away 
to England. Your thoughts and feelings, Cousin 
Ali, will grow more wholesome and gentle there. 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


63 


You have read something of our Christian 
Bible, Ali. There is in that a great saying : 
engeance is Mine, I will repay, saith the Lord !’ ’’ 
Ali made no reply, but gazed steadily at the doctor. 
^T, even I, would like,” said the doctor, ^ho find 
out who the traitor was. But — come down, Ali, 
from this horrid roof. The evening chill is rising 
from the rotting ground.” 

After that remarkable piece of talk with Ali, the 
doctor’s loathing of the place and all around it 
grew almost to fever heat. He longed to be away, 
and he sickened for England. He pushed forward 
his preparations and the ending of his engagement’ 
with the Sultan, and in a few days all was ready for 
departure. 

On a certain evening all was noise and bustle in 
the doctor’s courtyard and garden, for the dawn of 
next day was fixed for the northward journey, and 
the doctor knew the Moors too well to leave them 
and their mules and donkeys free in the city after 
he had engaged them. If he had left them to them- 
selves, he would probably not have found them again 
for a week. All, then, was bustle, which the doctor 
was trying to regulate, and noise, which he was 
striving to subdue, when a knocking came at the 
outer gate. No more arrivals were expected for 


64 


THE GKEEH THEBANS. 


the journey, and it was late for a visitor, so the 
doctor himself went and stood by while his big 
negro doorkeeper opened the gate. He was amazed 
when the gate was opened to see standing before 
him, with the torchlight flickering on his face, a 
very handsome, smooth-skinned boy in the usual 
dress of a well-to-do Moorish youth — a short 
Zouave jacket and a pair of very baggy trousers 
gathered at the ankle — but distinguished by a green 
turban. The boy was silent and abashed on seeing 
the doctor. 

“Well, my son,’’ said the doctor, in the Moorish 
speech, “what is your errand and whom do you 
seek ?” 

“Sidi Doctor,” the youth stammered, “I — I am 
a poor boy. And, Sidi Doctor ” 

“You don’t look like a poor boy,” said the doctor. 

Then the lad, with more confidence, protested: 
“Sidi Doctor, I tell the truth. I am. I wear the 
green turban because I am the son of a Shereef, a 
descendant of the Prophet, but I am poor and lonely. 
My father is dead, and my mother has gone into the 
house of another man — a pig, a beast, a son of Satan 
— and I have no protector but Allah. I wish to 
travel, sidi, to find my uncle in Tangier.” 

“Ah, my son,” said the doctor, “I see. You want 


THE GREEH TURBAHS. 65 

to travel with me?’’ and he began to shake his 
head. 

^^Oh, good Sidi Doctor,” cried the lad, seizing 
the doctor’s hand and clinging to it, ‘^do not send 
me away. I will serve you and the Sid’ Ali most 
faithfully. I will work and sing all the day, and 
lie awake all the night.” 

‘^You would not be much good at that rate,” 
smiled the doctor. ^^But you know the Sid’ Ali, 
then? How know you him?” 

*^Do not all men know the Sid’ Ali?” said the 
boy. ‘^And I,” he added, ‘‘know more than others. 
Did I not see the Sid’ Ali brought in a litter from 
the Sultan’s Palace to the Sidi Doctor’s house?” 

“What is your name?” asked the doctor. 

“My name, sidi,” answered the boy, looking hard 
at his own fingers, “is Hamed — Hamed is my 
name.” 

The doctor looked at the boy, considered that, if 
he knew as much as he said, he might know more, 
and said, having made up his mind : 

“Enter, my son. If you travel with us of your 
own free will, no man can say you were taken 
away.” 

He was thinking of the rigorous rule among the 
Moors that no true-born believer should enter the 
service of a Christian. 


C6 


THE GKEEH TUEBANS. 


He led the boy across the courtyard among the 
half-dozen poor and scoundrelly Moors who were 
squatting and squabbling among the baggage, and 
from whose fierce gaze the boy shrank and turned his 
head away. 

^^Come,” said the doctor, taking the boy’s hand 
kindly, ‘^and you shall talk with Sid’ Ali.” 

'‘No, Sidi Doctor,” said the boy, halting dead, 
with something like terror on his face. "Not to- 
night, sidi — to-morrow, perhaps.” 

The doctor wondered at the boy’s distress, but 
he did not press the point. He was determined, 
however, that Ali should see him at the earliest 
opportunity, for perhaps he might recognize him. 

When the boy slept that night on a mat in a 
little room off the doctor’s own, Ali was led in to 
have a peep at him. 

"Have you ever seen him before?” whispered the 
doctor. 

Ali gazed, and finally shook his head. But their 
movements, hushed though they were, and the lamp 
light, shaded though it was, woke the boy. He 
looked at them, and instantly put up his hands to 
hide his face. 

"Oh, Sidi Doctor, you should not!” he cried. . 

The doctor and Ali came away, somewhat put out 
and wondering a great deal. 


,THE GKEEN TURBAN'S. 


67 


‘'He’s a mysterious kid,” said the doctor to him- 
self. 

The next day some light was thrown on the mys- 
tery. The party of three travellers — the doctor, Ali 
and Molly — had managed to get off betimes, a little 
after sunrise, accompanied by the mysterious boy 
Hamed, by mules and mule drivers, and protected 
by the Government escort of two mounted soldiers. 
They rode slowly away over the hills to the north- 
west of Fez, through a country that was beginning 
to be dried up with the drought of summer, although 
it was but the month of May, when in England the 
“sweet o’ the year” has barely come in. Yet, in spite 
of the heat and the drought, in spite of the memory 
of the horrors recently enacted in the hoary, filthy 
old city they had left behind, the doctor found it a 
lovely land. The air was crisp and dry like cham- 
pagne, and all about them were flowering plants, red 
oleanders and what not, in and out among which 
flew and warbled real canaries, such canaries as are 
only to be seen in careful captivity in England. 
They rested during the mid-day heat, and ate a meal 
under a spreading cork oak, near a clear little brook 
of water. And thus refreshed, they rode on again, 
the two soldiers of the escort, simple as children 
(although they had in their hearts the cruelty of 


68 


THE GEEEJST THEBANS. 


devils), singing from sheer animal joy and want 
of thought, spurring their horses now and then into 
furious gallops, flinging their guns into the air and 
catching them again, or firing them off point-blank 
at some partridge or rabbit that might scurry from 
their path. 

The doctor, as leader of the party, had turned 
aside a little from the direct route to Tangier, in 
order to visit the Roman ruins on a hill, which are 
said to be the remains of the city of Volubilis, and 
late in the afternoon the party pitched their tents 
at the bottom of the slope. While a fire was being- 
lighted to cook by, the doctor and Molly strolled up 
the hill to look at the ruined stone arches and walls 
of the ancient Roman city. Ali would not go with 
them because, he said, the place was haunted by evil 
spirits. 

They were at the top of the hill, and the doctor 
was trying to make out an inscription in big Roman 
capitals, when Molly suddenly cried out. She stood 
gazing away to the south, and shading her eyes 
from the brilliance of the sinking sun in the west. 

“Who are they?” she asked. “They look like 
soldiers — horsemen. And they must be galloping. 
What for?” 

The doctor looked to the south also, and saw. 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


69 


sweeping on in a yellow haze of dust, a body of 
horsemen to the number of thirty or forty. They 
were plainly armed with spears, for over their heads 
there were glancing tips and shafts of light. They 
were about a mile oif when first observed, and the 
doctor watched them as they swept nearer and 
ever more near. It did not at first occur to him that 
they might be seeking his party; but as the smoke 
of the newly made fire curled up into the air, there 
came from the party of horsemen a loud halloo, as 
they turned aside a little, and rode like a torrent for 
the small encampment. 

‘^Good Heavens!’’ cried the doctor. “TheyTe 
after us ! Come, Molly 1” 

He pelted down the slope, leaping fallen blocks 
of stone as he went, and followed by Molly more 
carefully. He reached his tents only a second or 
two before the horsemen. 

''Look out ! Look out !” he called, in the Moorish 
speech. "To arms!” 

The two soldiers, who had been squatting to see 
the pot boil, jumped up and seized their long guns, 
the muleteers ran to their beasts and seized their 
cudgels, and Ali stood up, tall and ferocious, armed 
with an English breechloader. Seeing these prepa- 
rations, the oncoming horsemen swept round them in 


70 


THE GREEH TURBANS. 


a circle, enclosing them, and drawing their horses 
up suddenly on their haunches with their big, cruel 
bits. One horseman alone flung himself from his 
steed and advanced to the doctor with angry head 
and hand shot out. He was the redoubtable Sid’ 
El Helba. 

“Christian dog! Son of a dog!” he yelled, as he 
approached. “Where is my daughter?” 


THE GKEEN TUBBAHS. 


71 


CHAPTER VIL 

ALULA. 

‘‘Your daughter, sidi?’" exclaimed the doctor, in 
Moorish. “Am I the keeper of the daughter of the 
Sid’ El Helba? Have my eyes even ever beheld 
the daughter of the sidi ?” 

“Sidi Doctor,” cried the Sid’ El Helba, “you lie 
like a Christian! Too well, I know, must all your 
senses by now be acquainted with my daughter!” 

“This is madness and folly, sidi !” said the doctor, 
keeping his temper. “Lo!” he added, pointing to 
Molly, as she passed in through the circle of threat- 
ening horsemen. “She is the only woman of my 
company; and you know who she is.” 

“I know the daughter of the English, it is true,” 
said the angry Moor, shooting a keen glance at 
Molly; “she has been of your household for many 
days.” 

“Here is all our company,” continued Dr. Neale. 
“If you can find another woman among them, then 


n 


THE GREEH TURBANS. 


I shall be content to be convicted of lying and 
abduction, and to endure the consequences !” 

‘‘You have hidden her said the Moor, evidently 
a little shaken, but still obstinate in his belief. 

“Where can she be hid?’^ demanded the doctor, 
sweeping his hand round to indicate the impossi- 
bility of concealment. “Among the baggage? Let 
the sidi have my baggage searched. Such a thing,’’ 
he added, with a flash of temper, “I would not offer, 
or permit, to any comer; but in an afflicted father 
much is to be excused.” 

The Sid’ El Helba did not accept the offer of 
search; for the size of the portmanteaux and pack- 
ages lying around showed that they could not conceal 
the smallest of women. But he obstinately main- 
tained : 

“It is not possible, Sidi Doctor, that you do not 
know where my daughter is. Yesterday evening, 
after the hour of sunset prayer, she passed forth 
unknown to anyone save to an old female slave, and 
she has confessed that my daughter went forth to 
the house of the English doctor — to your house, 
sidi.” 

Then understanding came in a flash upon the 
doctor. “Ah, certainly, sidi,” said he, “there came 
to my gate yester evening a boy who desired to travel 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


73 


with me. He slept in my house, and he did travel 
with me. Hamed!’’ he called, looking around. 
“Where is Hamed?” 

But Hamed did not answer. And, on looking 
through the company, no Hamed was to be found. 

“He must have fled,” said the doctor, “at the sight 
of your coming.” 

“The lord doctor,” smiled Sid’ El Helba, “is a 
man of wisdom. He is the master of magicians. 
He changes a girl into a boy, and he makes the boy 
disappear. Let the learned magician doctor reverse 
his magic, and my daughter will reappear as my 
daughter.” 

The doctor knew that it would be useless to pro- 
test that he had no magical powers; he would not 
be believed, for all skilful doctoring is accounted 
magic by the Moors. He had shown himself in Fez 
a skilful doctor; therefore, he was a magician; that 
was an argument unanswerable. So he had to take 
another line. He presented no argument at all, but 
accepted the inevitable situation. 

“Your daughter, sidi,” said he, “shall be produced, 
if she has not fled far away.” 

“She must appear, lord doctor,” said El Helba, 
peremptorily, “if you do not desire to be carried back 
to Fez.” 


74 


THE GEEEH TUEBAHS. 


He strode back to his troop of horsemen, who 
had already lighted a fire and were preparing to 
bivouac for the night. And the doctor turned to 
take counsel with his sister-in-law and Ali. Ali had 
stood aloof in the interview with El Helba, although 
he had heard all that passed. Yet he appeared to 
take no interest in the necessity for finding Hamed. 

'Ts not that the man,’’ said he, ‘Vho put my 
brother and me in the pit of serpents ?” 

The doctor assented that El Helba was the man. 

‘^Then,” added Ali, ‘‘he must surely die.” And 
he would say no more. 

As for Molly, she said too much. “We’ll soon 
find her,” said she. “The girl, after all, is too silly 
and timid a creature to wander far by herself. I 
always thought she was.” 

“Do you mean that you know her?” asked the 
doctor. 

“Know her? Yes,” answered Molly. “I have 
seen her at the house of the Governor, and in her 
father’s house, too.” 

“And did you recognize her?” asked the doctor, 
more and more disturbed and astonished. 

“Well, yes, I did,” she answered. “And anybody 
but a male goose — a gander of a man — would have 
guessed that the shape and the walk of the creature 


THE GKEEN THEBANS. 


75 


were not those of a boy. You have been in Morocco 
long enough, Dick, to have taken notice that Moorish 
boys turn their toes in, and Moorish girls their toes 
out.^’ And she laughed lightly. 

‘^This is no laughing matter,” said the doctor, with 
a light frown. “When you recognized her, why 
didn’t you tell me?” 

“Well, for one or two reasons, Dick — for three, 
to be exact. It was rather too late when I recognized 
her — some time after we had started this morning, in 
fact; she begged me not to tell upon her, and I 
wanted to see what she would be up to.” 

“Well, you see now, I suppose,” said he, “how 
serious a matter it is. If we don’t find the girl, we 
must go back prisoners to Fez. And if once they 
get Ali into their cruel hands again, you can guess 
what may happen.” 

“I am very sorry,” said Molly, without answer- 
ing in the least to her description of herself. “But 
you needn’t be so grumpy and alarmed. I’ll find 
the girl.” 

And away she ran in haste (for darkness would 
soon descend like a curtain), and she coursed around 
among the scrub and the stones, calling in the Moor- 
ish speech: “Alula! Alula! If you do not come, 
your father will kill us I” 


76 


THE GEEEN TURBAHS. 


In answer to her appeal, Hamed (or Alula) ap- 
peared in a little while, scrambling through the 
bushes. And he (or she) and Molly came on to- 
gether, talking earnestly. 

'Xalla Alula,” said Molly, ''your father has come 
after us with horsemen, as you have seen, to take 
you back.” 

"I will not go back!” said Alula, with as much 
wilfulness as if she were English and not Moorish, 
and a civilized and educated young lady, instead of 
a semi-barbarous maiden, who had never learned to 
read or write. "You three,” said she, "go to the 
land of the English. I wish to go also. I will go.” 

"If you truly wish to go to the land of the English, 
Lalla Alula,” said Molly, "you may go in my com- 
pany, but dressed as a maiden.” 

"Will the lady sister of the doctor truly take me 
there?” exclaimed Alula. "Then, am I, indeed, 
happy.” 

"But your father will need to be persuaded, Lalla 
Alula?” 

"I will persuade him, lady,” said Alula. "And, 
if I fetl, then, lady, you will persuade him.” 

She spoke with a flattering smile that would have 
well become a young person used to the smooth ways 
of society. Molly agreed with her suggestion ; and. 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


77 


while Alula went boldly forward to face her father, 
Molly turned aside to inform her brother-in-law of 
the arrangement she had proposed. He said nothing 
but that, as she had the means — alluding to the con- 
siderable sum paid by the Sultan as compensation 
for her husband’s death — so she had the right of 
pleasing herself. 

Meanwhile the maiden Alula, in the dress of the 
boy Hamed, passed through the circle of her father’s 
horsemen, and arrived before her father, where he 
squatted, cross-legged, telling his beads for the 
evening prayer, with his back to the gnarled trunk 
of an arar tree. 

‘‘Here I am, my father,” said she, with a show of 
humility. 

“Ah, thou rebellious daughter!” said he; and he 
blended his words to her with his parrot address to 
the Almighty: “O Giver of good to all! . . » 

Thou hast cost me a day’s journey in the heat, all 
unused to hard riding as I am! . . . O Cre- 
ator! Defender of the poor! . . . But the 

head of the pig-eating doctor shall answer for carry- 
ing thee off!” 

“Finish thy prayer, and then listen to me, my 
father,” said the Lalla Alula, with complete self- 
possession; she was evidently a spoiled child. He 


78 


THPJ GREEN TURBANS. 


finshed his prayer, and she continued: ‘^Be not 
like a foolish, ignorant man, my father. The lord 
doctor knew nothing of my leaving thy house, knew 
not even who I was. I said I was a poor boy who 
had no parents, and who wished to arrive at Tangier 
to find a rich uncle.’’ 

‘^Kah, kah!” laughed the doting father. ‘Thou 
sweet bundle of craft and lies, kiss thy foolish 
father, who knows not how to be angry with thee. 
Allah has seen fit to give me no son; but thou 
shouldst have been a boy!” 

She kissed her father, and pulled his beard, which 
was straight and straggling like a goat’s. 

“Thou must contrive to spend the night here with 
me, but to-morrow at dawn we ride back to Fez.” 

“Nay, not so, my father,” said she, caressing his 
hand and his cheek. 

“What, rebellious one? Why nay?” 

“I have a great scheme in my little head for thy 
greatness, my father. I wish to make thee Vizier, 
my father, and to give thee power to lead our lord 
the Sultan as a grown man leads a little child. 
For that end it is necessary that I go to the land 
of the English.” 

“What, thou obstinate and rebellious daughter! 
Dost thou still cherish thy madness and perversity? 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


79 


The land of the English is very far. How canst 
thou ever reach it? It is beyond the heaving sea. 
Hast thou no fear that the sea will swallow thee 
up?’’ 

‘T am thy daughter and I have no fear, my 
father. Moreover, I will go holding the hand of 
the lady sister of the doctor, and the ships of the 
English are great and strong. Have I not seen 
them?” 

Then her father wept, saying: “Ai, ai! Have 
I not cherished thee as a dove in my bosom, and 
thou wouldst lightly leave me and fly away? But 
thou shalt not. I will bind thee and carry thee 
back, and feed thee on the black bread of affliction 
and the stale water of affliction to tame thy obsti- 
nate mind.” 

“Listen to me, my father,” said she, still caress- 
ing him. “Thou hast not heard my plan. It is 
part of my plan that thou shouldst go to the land 
of the English also.” 

“Now, Allah forbid !” he exclaimed. 

“Nay, my father, pray rather that Allah may 
grant it, for I have had a dream that I should travel 
to the land of the English first, and that thou 
wouldst follow and thereafter be the greatest of all 
men. And now I understand how. Listen to me. 


80 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


my father. Thou art truly of the family of the 
Slier eefs of Tetuan, although a distant and humble 
member. Is that not so ?” 

‘^1 am indeed and of a truth/’ said he, proudly. 

‘‘Mohammed, the Grand Shereef and Prince of 
Tetuan is dead. He was a rebel. His brother Ali 
is now Grand Shereef and Prince in his stead, is 
he not?” 

“He is. May the curse of Allah light upon 
him!” 

“It will, my father. He also is a rebel, and 
when he reaches the land of the English he will 
rebel more and more. I will travel in his company, 
and I will speak kindly to him, and tempt him more 
and more to rebellion till he is deep in treason to 
the neck. Then, in the meanwhile, thou wilt also 
travel to the land of the English.” 

“But, wherefore, oh foolish seer of visions and 
teller of tales, should I travel to the land of the 
English?” demanded her father, profoundly in- 
terested. 

“I have considered it all,” said his daughter. “Is 
there not a mission talked of to finish the business 
which brought Sir Edward to Fez?” 

“But that is the business of Sid’ Moussa.” 

“It must be thine, my father. Thou, and not 


THE GEEEN TUKBANS. 


81 


Sid’ Moussa, must travel to the land of the English 
on that mission. And when thou dost come and 
hast stayed a while, thou shalt go to the Sultana 
of the English and demand that Ali, Prince of 
Tetuan, be arrested and handed over to thee by her 
soldiers as a rebel and traitor against our lord the 
Sultan. I will find and prepare thee the proofs.” 

‘‘Thou art a jewel of a daughter,” exclaimed 
her father. “Better than a score of sons!” 

“Then shall we bring back Ali in bonds,” she 
continued, “and thou shalt become in his place 
Grand Shereef and Prince of Tetuan and Vizier of 
our lord the Sultan.” 

The Sid’ El Helba started to his feet in his 
excitement. He called one of his black horsemen. 

“Go,” said he, “to the Sidi Doctor and say that 
I seek a word with the Sidi Doctor’s sister.” The 
man departed, and then to his daughter El Helba 
said : “Withdraw for a little while out of sight and 
out of hearing.” 

In a few minutes Molly came and found El 
Helba seated on some gay saddle-cloths in the 
flickering light of the fire. He motioned her to a 
'similar seat near him. He smiled and rubbed his 
hands, while he considered her closely. 

“Thou hast something to say to me, sidi?” she 
said, sweetly. 


82 


THE GEEEH TUKBANS. 


‘Hn a little while/’ said he, slowly, shall meet 
thee in the land of the English. Does the prospect 
please thee?” 

Molly went pale, deathly pale, and put her hand 
up to her cheek. She moved her lips and moistened 
them with her tongue, but for some moments she 
said no word. 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


83 


CHAPTER VIIL 

A SOCIETY SORCERESS. 

It was in the month of July, and the London sea- 
son was in the fullest swing; in fact, it had been in 
full swing so long that it was growing tired and in- 
clined to lassitude and headache. Perhaps the only 
women in London who were what is vulgarly 
called ‘‘in the swim,” and who still floated on gaily 
and with obvious enjoyment, were Molly Neale 
and the Moorish maiden Alula. Molly was known 
among men as “the merry widow.” She persistent- 
ly wore mourning, for she knew that black in all its 
fashionable shapes and modifications became her, and 
she was aware, also, that it advertised her. She 
saw, she felt, that when she appeared in any gath- 
ering people asked: “Who is the little woman” 
— or, for preference — “the pretty little woman, in 
black?” And then she was convinced that her pa- 


84 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


thetic story was told. How her husband was shot 
— before her very eyes ! — in a Moorish Palace when 
he was trying to save from capture and imprison- 
ment the Prince of Tetuan. That was the new 
Prince over there, the gentleman with the Italian 
look, the large melancholy, languorous eyes, and 
the silky, dark-red beard. An odd combination of 
color, was it not? 

It made him look very remarkable and noble, 
and it was accounted for by his having had an 
English, or, rather, an Irish mother. 

Thus Molly knew she was talked about, and 
her name constantly associated with that of Ali, 
the Grand Shereef and Prince of Tetuan. She had 
been resolved upon making an impression on so- 
ciety, and she was delighted with her success; for 
she had been taken up, not only by those who 
court notorieties, but also by those soft-hearted (but 
too frequently wrong-headed) people who are always 
in sympathy with oppressed causes so long as they 
are not British. 

For these latter folk Molly represented her 
slaughtered husband, who had died in defence of 
an oppressed cause (so the story went) ; while 
Ali represented that cause itself, of which his brother 
had been the martyr. The Moorish girl. Alula, 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


85 


provoked an interest of another kind — a wonder- 
ing fascination. Was she not the daughter of one 
of those wicked, cruel, and tyrannical Bashas from 
whom the oppressed people of Morocco sighed and 
moaned for relief? People seemed astonished to 
find her so beautiful, so gay, so childlike, and al- 
together so charming. 

“Looks quite ladylike and refined, does she not, 
in her English clothes? I wonder what she wears 
at home?’’ That was the kind of thing that was 
said. 

On a certain afternoon a sympathetic and phil- 
anthropic Countess gave a garden party. She 
had been in frequent correspondence with Prince 
Ali of Tetuan and his confidential adviser and 
cousin. Dr. Neale, and she intended her party to 
be the inauguration of a new society which she 
(and other amiable philanthropists in council with 
her) proposed to call “The Friends of Moorish Free- 
dom.” But most of the guests — Molly Neale among 
them — found that rather an excuse than a reason 
for attending the Countess’s garden party. Three 
causes, truly, combined to bring a crowd : the fine- 
ness of the weather, the loveliness of the grounds, 
and the necessity of being seen at so fashionable 
a function. But the Countess had a good deal of 


86 


THE GEEEH TUEBAHS. 


the wisdom of her world. She knew that her guests 
would need amusement, as well as philanthropic 
instruction; and, therefore, in addition to her great 
event — which was declared to be the appearance 
of the Grand Shereef and Prince of Tetuan to ad- 
dress the assemblage on the cause of Moorish Free- 
dom — she provided what may be called, without 
disrespect or irreverence, ‘‘side-shows.’^ The chief 
of these attractions was a young lady who was 
credited with the gift of second sight, but whose 
ordinary accomplishment was palmistry. She was 
a relation of the Countess. She did not practice 
her art for hire, and therefore, her vaticinations 
were more sought after than those of professional 
prophets, who were thought to be too frequently 
both dear and lying. 

Miss Cameron, palmist and seer, received the suit- 
ors of her skill in a large greenhouse where was 
an ancient grape-vine. A footman kept the door, 
and resolutely refused to let more than one party 
enter at a time. Molly and Alula encountered at 
the door the Prince of Tetuan and Dr. Neale. 

“Oh, how do you do?” gushed Molly. “It’s 
ages since we met. Are you going in to the sor- 
ceress, Prince?” (She had never called Ali “Prince” 
in his own country.) “And you, too, Dick? I 


THE GEEEN TUKBANS. 


87 


thought you were too wise and solemn to be inter- 
ested in having your fortune told!” 

'Well, yes,” said Dick Neale, 'T fear it is small 
evidence of wisdom to be interested in the things 
you are interested in, Molly.” 

She tapped his knuckles with her fan. "Do 
let us go in together as one party. It will be such 
fun to hear each other’s fortunes.” 

They passed in together, Molly leading with Ali, 
and the doctor following with Alula. But Alula 
seemed scarcely conscious of the doctor’s neigh- 
borhood. Her dark eyes — wonderful orbs of light 
— were steadily fixed on him who passed in before 
her. They presented themselves to the sorceress, 
Miss Cameron, who was a handsome young lady 
with ruddy hair and ruddy complexion. She sat 
against the vine, and its swelling bunches of purple 
grapes seemed to hang towards the glow of her 
head. 

"Ah, Prince,'’ said she, with humble deprecation 
of her function, "I’m afraid I can’t tell your for- 
tune. It is too great for me.” 

Although Ali was fast progressing in his knowl- 
edge of conversational English, he did not quite 
understand what the lady said, and it was trans- 
lated for him into Moorish by the doctor. 


88 THE GEEEN TURBANS. 

‘^Yes/’ said he then. “I wish it, please. But 
first the young lady of my country.’’ 

Alula blushed when the proposal was explained 
to her, laughed, and hid her face for an instant 
on Molly’s shoulder. Then she sat down and sub- 
mitted her hand to the sorceress, and Molly trans- 
lated into Moorish as Miss Cameron spoke. There 
was, however, nothing remarkable in her fortune. 
The hand was young and plump, its lines few. 
There was but one point very notable, where the 
line of love crossed the line of life. So Alula was 
set aside to ponder. Molly resolutely abjured her 
right to follow next. She could not and would 
not go before the Prince; she must hear his great 
and delightful fortune first. So Ali sat down and 
solemnly submitted his hand — both his hands — to 
the sorceress. As Miss Cameron spoke the doctor 
translated, and Ali listened with profound atten- 
tion. 

‘‘What an extraordinary hand!” exclaimed the 
lady, perusing the palm and bending the fingers 
of the left hand, and then doing the same with 
the right. “Here are deeply-marked double lines 
of life and double lines of love, and the lines of 
love run into the lines of life in the most resolute 


THE GEEEN TUKBANS. 


89 


‘Tt is good/' murmured Ali, when her words Had 
been translated into his Moorish. 

So she ran on in the usual way about the line 
of the head and the line of the heart, the mount 
of this and the mount of that; all to no particular 
purpose. 

^^Tell me of the future," said Ali. 

She studied his hands very closely and in silence, 
and then she went on as in a reverie with Her eyes 
bent on the palms. 

'The future is closely dependent on the past. 
As the past has been troubled and stormy, so will 
the future be. In the past was a very, very great 
grief; it was not a love-grief and it was not a life- 
grief; it was a remarkable interlocking of the two. 
I cannot quite make out what it was." 

"It was the death of my brother Mohammed,” 
said Ali, simply. 

"From that," continued the sorceress, "springs 
the great purpose of the future in which great 
personages are concerned, and men with swords and 
on horseback." 

"Will the purpose succeed?" asked Ali, impa- 
tiently. 

She pored more intently upon the palms, an'd 
with a finger-tip carefully traced this line and that. 


90 


THE GEEEH THEBANS. 


will succeed,” said she. 

'‘Ha! Good!” said he. 

"But only,” she added, "through means which 
your friends will find for you.” 

"My friends of the English?” said he, with a 
smile. 

"No,” said she, viewing the palms with some 
perplexity, "it is foreign aid you will get. And,” 
she added, looking in his face, "since you are half- 
English, English aid would not really be foreign. 
Besides,” she continued, returning to the perusal 
of the palms, "you will only escape disaster and 
death by becoming a citizen of that country that 
will give you aid. And that country,” said she, 
with a smile, "can’t be England, for our Government 
is too cautious to make citizens when there is any 
risk in making them.” 

Ali looked thoughtful, but said nothing. 

"All that,” said Molly, "seems to me awfully un- 
interesting. You do not say anything. Miss Came- 
ron, of his love affairs. Will he never marry?” 

Ali turned to the doctor for a translation of Mol- 
ly’s words. 

"No,” said he, brusquely, when he had under- 
stood; "no love, no marriage.” 

He withdrew his hands from the palmist, and 


THE GEEEH THEBANS. 


91 


Alula turned away her head with a look of un- 
quenchable fire. 

It was then Molly’s turn to submit her hands to 
the sorceress, and she did so merrily. But her 
merriment soon ceased, for Miss Cameron’s read- 
ing of her palms caused great sensation in the party. 
In her case, as in Ali’s, the lines of life and of 
love were double; but they were unblended. The 
lines of life were well marked and strong, while 
the line of the head and the line of the heart were 
vague and weak. These, however, were but state- 
ments to laugh over. 

'T always suspected your head, Molly,” said the 
doctor, with a smile, ‘^of being vague and weak; 
but that’s news about your heart.” 

The sensation came after. 

‘Tell me,” said Molly, “shall I have another hus- 
band ?” 

“Do you want another, Mrs. Neale?” asked Miss 
Cameron. She spoke with a smile, but her tone was 
envenomed. 

“That is just as may be,” laughed Molly. 

“Well,” said Miss Cameron, “the future must 
always closely depend on the past. Let me see,” 
and she pored upon the palm of the left hand and 
then upon the right. She paused as if doubtful. 


92 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


and looked hard in Molly's face. She looked at 
the hands again. ‘^1 really cannot tell you," she 
said at length, pushing the palms away. I had 
you alone I might, but I really cannot now." 

^Hs it too terrible?" asked Molly, with a laugh; 
but she had changed color to a livid, damp white 
— a change which not even her careful cosmetics 
could hide. Miss Cameron said no more, but 
continued to look at her. ‘Hs it murder, or bigamy, 
or what?" Molly demanded. But she did not ask 
whether the astonishment was concerning the fu- 
ture or the past. 

‘T will tell you alone some time," said Miss 
Cameron. 

‘‘Well," said Molly, ^‘will you come and isee me 
alone to-morrow, in the afternoon ?" 

'H will," said Miss Cameron. 

'Tt is too ridiculous, isn’t it?" said Molly, flounc- 
ing up and appealing to her companions. The doc- 
tor looked troubled, while, as for Ali and Alula, they 
looked merely puzzled, because they did not un- 
derstand, although they guessed that something un- 
toward had been said. Molly herself looked more 
than troubled. She looked scared, and she bit her 
lip now and again as they walked out of the green- 
house, 


THE GREEX THEBANS. 


93 


When they were out Molly encountered another 
surprise. A well-dressed gentleman, with large 
pointed moustaches, saluted her, hat in hand. 

''My dear Mrs. Neale,” said he, "how happy I 
am to meet you again !” 

He spoke with a strong French accent. Molly 
glanced at her brother-in-law as if she would ask: 
"Who is this gentleman? I don’t remember.” 

"It is Captain De Courcel, Molly,” said Dick. 
"You must have met him in Fez.” 

"To be sure,” gurgled Molly. "I did not rec- 
ognize him in these clothes. I hope you are very 
well. Monsieur De Courcel.” 

"I thank you,” said the polite Frenchman. "And 
you? There is no need to inquire. You look 
charming. If I may come to see you, and,” he 
added, with an odd accent, "to. talk of our meet- 
ings in Fez.” 

"I am at home,” said Molly, "every Wednesday 
afternoon.” 

They parted. Molly smiled, but the moment 
after she looked not only troubled, but perplexed, 
and her bosom heaved. 

Her trouble and perplexity would have been: 
greater still if she had been privileged to follo\^. 
De Courcel into the greenhouse, 


94 


THE GEEEN TUEBAHS. 


‘Well/’ said Miss Cameron, giving him her hand 
with a charming smile, “I have said what you sug- 
gested.” 

“To both?” he asked. 

“To both,” said she. 

“Good,” said he, clasping her hand again. “Very 
good.” 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


95 


CHAPTER IX. 

'^THE FRIENDS OF MOORISH FREEDOM.” 

But the great event of the Countesses garden 
party was, as I have said, the meeting for the 
inauguration of the Society of ‘The Friends of 
Moorish Freedom.” At a certain moment the 
Countess and her advisers found the Prince of Te- 
tuan and Dr. Neale, surrounded them, and conveyed 
them to a table set with a water-bottle and glass 
at the top of the terrace steps. They all took 
their places solemnly in chairs about three sides 
of the table. Then a man with a long beard, who ^ 
was the publisher of several books about Morocco, 
rose and proposed that a certain noble lord should 
be the chairman; and another man, who had writ- 
ten one of the books about Morocco which the pub- 
lisher had published, rose and seconded the pro- 
posal. The proposal was received with applause by 
the waiting assembly at the bottom of the steps. 
Thereupon the noble lord — who had found fortune 
and a peerage in whisky — took the chair, uttered a 


96 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


few halting sentences about the oppressed condi- 
tion of the people of Morocco, and then begged 
to introduce to them his Highness Ali, Grand She- 
reef and Prince of Tetuan, and a lineal descendant 
of the Prophet Mohammed. 

‘H have great pleasure,” added the noble lord, 
with haste and relief, ‘hn requesting the Grand 
Shereef and Prince of Tetuan to address you.” 

There was a flutter of interest in the crowd, es- 
pecially among the ladies. Dr. Neale and Ali (who 
knew not at all what was expected of him) held a 
whispered consultation; and then Ali rose, and was 
greeted with a storm of applause, which somewhat 
puzzled and disconcerted him. 

'^Gentlemen and ladies,” said he (for he had not 
yet been educated to the civilized pitch of putting 
ladies first), ‘T have not your English quick on the 
tongue to say things well. Soon I will. My friend, 
my cousin, the learned Dr. Neale, he will say for 
me.” 

These little, modest, and simple sentences pleased 
his audience more than would have a serious and 
philanthropic speech. They applauded vigorously 
and declared it was ^Very pretty.” 

“It is very clever, very wise,” said De Courcel, 
shutting up a notebook which he had surreptitious- 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


97 


ly made ready. He stood on the skirt of the throng 
in the company of Miss Cameron, the sorceress. 

‘'Were you going to take notes/’ she asked, “if 
he made a speech?” 

“I was,” he answered. 

“Why?” she asked. He glanced at her with a 
smile. “Tell me/' she murmured. 

“Because,” said he, “we others, of France, take 
a very great interest in Ali of Tetuan — but a very 
great interest indeed! Know you,” he added, in a 
burst of confidence, “that the Grand Shereef of Te- 
tuan has more of influence, more of worship, in the 
country of Moroc than his Highness the Sultan him- 
self? Much more.” 

“Has he, indeed ?” exclaimed Miss Cameron, 
glancing at Ali with new interest. 

“If it pleased him to make an insurrection and 
to raise the green banner of the Prophet,” contin- 
ued De Courcel, “he would have more followers, 
many more, than the Sultan himself. But I think 
the young man does not know that.” 

“Ah, I see,” said Miss Cameron. “And you 
would like to find out if he knows it?” The French- 
man smiled. “And to teach him if he does not 
know?” The Frenchman smiled again. “And to 
lead him on to rebellion when he does know?” 


98 THE GEEEN TUKBANS. 

A third time the Frenchman smiled. She looked 
at him steadily and shook her head. 

‘‘Why not?” said he. “Rebellion is my forte, 
my metier” 

“Ah, Captain De Courcel,” said Miss Cameron, 
in a very low voice, and with a soft, sad sigh, 
“will you never leave off your dangerous, wicked 
ways and settle down?” 

“I am too poor,” said he, with an easy shrug. 
“ 'Sh! The learned Dr. Neale is speaking.” 

She was silent. But she looked thoughtful, and 
she lightly tapped her fingers with her fan. 

There is no need for me to report exactly and 
verbatim what Dr. Neale said. It was remarkable 
that, as if he had overheard De Courcel's words, 
he repeated to the whole company, but more fully, 
pretty much the same kind of statements regard- 
ing the position in Morocco of the Grand Shereef 
of Tetuan, with this difference: He said nothing 
about warlike rebellion; on the contrary, he de- 
clared that the reforms and the changes which Ali, 
and his brother Mohammed before him, wished 
to produ(;e were peaceful. 

“The influence,” said he, “of the family of the 
Grand Shereef has been wide; but it has been re- 
ligious rather than political, in a country where pol- 


rTHE GEEEN TURBANS. 


99 


itics mean war, assassination, plunder, and massacre. 
The wretched people of Morocco,” he continued, 
“have had enough, and more than enough, of that 
variety of politics. It is a peaceful, kindly move- 
ment that my cousin wishes to promote. His cause 
is merely the elementary cause of good laws, and 
equal justice for all men. It is the cause of civil- 
ization without warfare. The Prince of Tetuan 
desires to be a Prince of peace.” 

With that lead other speakers followed in the 
same strain, and at last the Society of “The Friends 
of Moorish Freedom” was declared founded, and 
subscriptions were invited. 

“Ah, doctor!” exclaimed De Courcel, when they 
met a little later. “You English! You English!” 

“Well,” said the doctor, smiling, “what do you 
find is the matter with us English now ?” 

“It is always Teace! Peace!’ when” — ^he 
shrugged his shoulders — “you do not mean that 
at all.” 

“My dear sir,” said the doctor, “you do not un- 
derstand. We always desire peace ; but if our peace- 
ful disposition is taken advantage of by people who 
wish to make a row, we knock them on the head 
— for the sake of peace.” 

“Ah, yes,” said the Frenchman, “as your people 


LcfC. 


100 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


say, England desires to be the policeman of the 
world — the great policeman with a great stick.’’ 

‘^And France,” said the doctor, ‘‘is the gendarme 
of the world — the little gendarme with the little 
sword — who makes more trouble than he can put 
down.” 

iTHe Frenchman accepted the retort with a bow 
and a shrug. ''Bien/' said he. “Well — very well. 
^Apropos, I have just conducted to the great police- 
man at the gate your charming sister Madame 
Neale. Oh, it was nothing. She was fatigued ” 

“Very unusual for her to be fatigued,” inter- 
rupted the doctor. 

“Yes,” assented De Courcel. “She wished to go 
home. She refused to let me find her carriage; she 
said the policeman would do that. She has her 
own carriage — yes?” asked De Courcel. 

“I believe,” said the doctor, somewhat grumpily, 
“she has set up something of the kind, hired prob- 
ably. I don’t see,” he added, half to himself, “how 
she can afford anything else.” 

“So,” said the Frenchman, “she is not rich?” 

“It would be news to me if I were told she is,” 
said the doctor, and turned away. 

“Do you return to town now ?” asked De Courcel. 
“Will you take a seat in my victoria?” 


THE GREEN* TURBANTS. 


101 


‘‘Thanks, no,’" said Dr. Neale. ‘T must find my 
cousin and return with him.” 

^‘Apropos” said the Frenchman, returning and 
laying an emphatic finger on the doctor’s sleeve, 
“have you ever guessed who delivered Ali and his 
brother from the pit of serpents? Has Ali ever 
guessed ?” 

‘T haven’t, and I don’t think he has,” said the 
doctor. “I only remember something you said at 
the time about an houri from Paradise.” 

“Well,” said De Courcel, “that houri was the 
girl Alula, the daughter of El Helba. That is 
true. I saw her with these, my own eyes.” 

“Really? Well, I had not guessed that.” 

And so they parted. As the doctor moved here 
and there to find his cousin Ali, he looked troubled. 

“That French fellow always disturbs me,” he 
grumbled to himself. “Now why did he want to 
inquire about Molly’s means? And why, at this 
particular moment, did he tell me about Alula? I 
must tell that to Ali, I suppose. He will take a 
greater interest in the girl. That may be a good 
thing for him and for her, too. 'She’s a very nice, 
girl. ... A very handsome girf.v a 
Might allay enmities . . . and reconcile’ ene- 
mies. . . . But I wonder what is in his schem- 

ing, unscrupulous head about Molly?” 


102 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


CHAPTER X. 

THE frenchman’s TRIUMPH. 

Mrs. Neale had established herself in a hand- 
some flat in Chelsea Mansions, Victoria-street. Her 
drawing-room was unusually large for a flat; and 
on her Wednesday afternoons she was quite proud 
of it, and the number of well-dressed and more or 
less polite and distinguished people it contained. 
But on her last Wednesday of the season she seemed 
less pleased and proud than had been her wont; 
and that was not because her drawing-room was 
deserted, for she was a society favorite, and for her 
last day she had the presence of a large and bril- 
liant company. 

But Molly was not happy. She had an accumu- 
lation of worries to weigh upon and depress her. 
First and most insistent was this: Miss Cameron, 
the palmist and seer, had not fulfilled her promise 
to come in private and explain her hints of things 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


103 


terrible read in Molly's pink palms. Three weeks 
had passed, and now Molly had been invited for 
August to the Countess’s place in Scotland, where, 
doubtless. Miss Cameron would appear also. And 
Molly was afraid of Miss Cameron. Secondly, 
Molly had an increasing suspicion that Alula was 
in love — deeply, passionately in love — with Ali. 
Since Ali had learned who had released his brother 
and himself from the pit of serpents, he had come 
frequently to Molly’s flat to see her and Alula. 
That was perfectly right and proper. But that 
Alula — a mere child, a semi-savage, and Molly’s 
protegee — should look on Ali with eyes of love was 
utterly ridiculous. As a matter of fact. Alula was 
no child, although only sixteen. Being a Moor, 
she was quite a woman; and Molly knew that, 
while she affected to believe her an infant. Besides, 
Molly had other matrimonial views for the Grand 
Slier eef and Prince of Tetuan, who, she had been 
surprised to learn, was a personage of greater wealth 
and influence than the Sultan of Morocco himself. 
Thirdly, her brother-in-law. Dr. Dick, had sent her 
word that he desired a serious, solitary interview 
with her before she departed for Scotland, and he 
was coming that afternoon. Fourthly and lastly. 
Captain De Courcel also desired an interview with 


104 : 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


her that evening, and he was coming to dinner. 
And she was troubled with doubts of Captain De 
Courcel. 

Dr. Dick arrived just as Molly was saying ^%ood- 
bye” to the last of her afternoon guests. 

‘Will you have a cup of tea, Dick?” she asked. 

“No, thank you,” he answered. 

“Anything else?” said she. 

“Presently, perhaps,” said he; “but not yet.” And 
he glanced at the dazzlingly handsome person of 
Alula extended on a couch In a languorous reverie. 

“Well,” said Molly, settling herself in a lounge- 
chair that became her figure and her dress, “you 
want to talk seriously, don’t you?” She spoke with 
loud distinctness. 

“Yes,” said Alula, in her pretty English, in which 
she was becoming fluent, “I know. I will go away,” 
and she rose from her couch and withdrew. 

The doctor watched her go with interest. 

“You shouldn’t keep her in short frocks, Molly,” 
He murmured. “She is quite a woman.” 

“Is she?” said Molly, carelessly. 

“You don’t think enough of that girl, Molly,” 
said he. 

“And,” she retorted, with energy, “it seems to me, 
Dick, that you think too much.” 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 105 

“You dress her so badly/’ said the doctor, “and 
yourself so well.” 

“I can’t afford to dress her any better,” said 
Molly, “if I am to have a rag for my own poor 
back.” 

And she looked down at the delicate confection 
of lace and silk which draped her pretty, plump 
person, and which she called a tea-gown. 

• “I suppose,” said he, “you hope to get the cost 
of her out of her doting papa, the Sid’ El Helba? 
And I don’t imagine he’ll be mean.” 

It was said at a venture; but the effect was some- 
what remarkable. Molly shot a sharp glance at 
her brother-in-law ; she flushed, and then she 
paled. 

“You do hope to get the money from him?” he 
said. 

“And if I do, what then?” she demanded. “Is 
it wrong to be reimbursed a little for all I am out 
of pocket? I am poor enough, goodness knows, 
Dick.” 

“That brings us, Molly, to the very thing 1 
wanted to talk about.” 

“Oh, goodness gracious ! I thought that was it, 
Dick. Go on.” 

‘Well, my dear. I’m your trustee — I wish I were 


10 « 


THE Gmm TURBANS. 


not, but I am — and I must consider how you are go- 
ing to keep all this up.’’ 

‘‘All what up?” 

“This expensive flat,” said he, sweeping his hand 
around, “and things like that what’s-his-name that 
you have on.” 

“Oh,” said she, “you would like me to live in a 
garret, I suppose, or in a cellar, and wear all day 
long a rusty black frock. Well,” she continued, 
“I am not going to do that for anyone.” 

“My dear Molly,” he argued, feebly, “I don’t 
want you to do that.” 

“No,” said she, “it would be no use asking me, 
because I won’t ! . . . I won’t lead the mouldy 

life of a mouldy widow, dining on bread and drip- 
ping one day, and on dripping and bread the next 
for a change!” 

“I would like you,” said the doctor, insisting on 
being heard — for Molly had a way of seeking to 
beat down opposition with an unceasing stream of 
whimsical, irresponsible, naive protest, which seemed 
childlike, but which (I believe) was carefully calcu- 
lated — “I would like you,” he insisted, “to have the 
best time possible, but there turns up the eternal 
question of ‘How?’ What means have you got to 
get a good time?” 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


107 


'T must make a rich marriage/' said she, with her 
eye now attentively turned on him. ‘^And I would 
— if you didn’t try to balk me.” 

It needed reflection for a second or two before the 
doctor understood. 

“You don’t mean to say, Molly,” he exclaimed, 
“that you are thinking of AH ?” 

“Why not? Your aunt married a Grand Shereef 
and Prince of Tetuan; why shouldn’t I?” 

“I have always understood, Molly,” said the doc- 
tor, seriously and sympathetically, “that she bitterly 
repented it. She led a most miserable existence. 
I am sure it must be always a mistake for a civil- 
ized woman to marry a barbarian.” 

“After all,” said she, “Ali is only half a barba- 
rian.” 

“But his views of women are barbarous, that 
I can tell you,” declared the doctor. 

“How interesting,” said she. “The civilized view 
is silly and dull; I can quite imagine the barbarous 
view might be an attractive, a delightful change.” 

“Well, Molly,” said he, with a sigh, “I know 
you well enough to be sure that, if you have set 
your mind on that, you won’t let it alone. If you 
want a hot cinder out of the fire you don’t mind 
burning your fingers. But I don’t think you’ll suc- 
ceed. I think Ali is really taken up with Alula.” 


108 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


“That’s merely gratitude,” said Molly, shrewdly. 
“People don’t marry out of gratitude.” 

They continued to talk, but of things which do 
not concern this story. We will, therefore, come to 
the time when Dick Neale said adieu to Molly at 
the door of her flat. She heard the deep notes of 
Big Ben boom harmoniously through the hot, hazy 
air. She counted them. Seven! The doctor had 
lingered late, and Captain De Courcel should have 
arrived; he had promised to come early. In pro- 
ceeding to her room to dress for dinner she passed 
what she called her morning-room. She was amazed 
to hear impassioned voices — the voices of Alula and 
Captain De Courcel. She paused and listened with- 
out scruple. They spoke in Moghrebbin, or Moor- 
ish, which Molly understood and could use pretty 
well now. 

“Yes,” said Alula, “it is I that say it! By 
what right dost thou, Kaid of a Hundred” (mean- 
ing a person of pretty low rank), “meddle with 
the affairs of Ali of Tetuan?” 

“But, Lalla Alula,” said the Frenchman, with 
slow carelessness, “thou art but a maiden, and a 
young one. What knowest thou of matters of 
State?” 

“My father,” said Alula, with an angry stamp 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


109 


of her little foot, ^^when I set out to come to the 
land of the English, gave me Ali of Tetuan to 
observe, and to note, so that I might tell him all 
when he came.’’ 

“Did he indeed and of a truth?” said the French- 
man, with sarcastic voice. “It is, then, a strange 
thing that I, even I, the poor Kaid of a Hundred, 
am here on the same errand, sent by thy worthy 
and honored father, the Sid’ El Helba. It may 
be that thy father repented him when thou wert 
gone. He may have thought that he had done fool- 
ishly in bidding a young and beautiful maiden keep 
watch and make report on a handsome young man; 
although he be his enemy and the Sultan’s.” 

“Peace, Sir Captain!” said Alula, again stamp- 
ing in anger. “I am not young and beautiful for 
thee!” 

“Nay, lovely Lalla, but it is likely thou art for 
Ali of Tetuan.” 

“If that thought was in my father’s head it is 
thou, poisonous toad of a Frenchman, that must 
have put it there !” 

“Now* that I recall it,” said De Courcel, “I did 
murmur a question in the ear of the fond and fool- 
ish father of the Lalla. And this was the ques- 
tion: 'Hath Allah compounded young maidens 


110 


THE GEEEN TCJKBANS. 


so that they can be the enemies of handsome 
young men, even if the young men be the enemies of 
the maidens’ fathers ?’ That was my question, and it 
is possible that the fond father of the Lalla answered 
in his heart and said, ^No.’ ” 

'Thou art a beast, a traitor! Thou art the head 
of a hyena!” said Alula. "Now will I tell my 
father when he comes how thou goest hither and 
thither on thine own business and not on his, how 
thou dost lead Ali of Tetuan to the house of the 
French Bashador. Ha, 1 have seen thee, and now 
thou art afraid! And I will ask my fond and 
foolish father to consider why Ali of Tetuan should 
be carried secretly to the house of the Bashador of 
France.” 

There was a pause before De Courcel replied. 
"Then, Lalla Alula, dost thou guess what I will 
do? I will reveal to the fond and doting father of 
the Lalla that his daughter, and no other, was the 
person who truly released Ali of Tetuan and his 
brother from the pit of serpents to which he had 
condemned them. What will the Sid’ El Helba 
say to that?” 

It was Alula’s turn to be silent. 

"T think,” said De Courcel, presently, "it is time 
that we sought the presence of Madame Neale.” 


THE GEEEN TUKBANS. 


Ill 


And Molly fled to her room. When she re- 
appeared in the drawing-room dressed for dinner, 
she merely said in French: hope you have not 

been waiting long?” 

To which De Courcel replied : ‘T arrived before 
your brother-in-law, the doctor, went away; but 
Alula took pity on me, and entertained me with 
talk.” , 

During the dinner they spoke in French, of which 
Alula, of course, understood not a word. The Moor- 
ish maiden, therefore, when dinner was at an end, 
and they had returned to the drawing-room — she 
waited till then, for she had quickly picked up all 
the usages of public behavior — withdrew to the bal- 
cony to look out upon the street. Then the two 
prepared to have their private talk, for the pres- 
ence of the third person was a constraint, even al- 
though they knew that the third person did not un- 
derstand their words. 

“Well,” said she, smiling up in his face from her 
favorite lounge-chair; he was leaning against the 
corner of the mantel, with a thoughtful eye on the 
balcony. 

“You are very lovely — very beautiful, to-night!” 
said he, turning fully towards her and taking a seat 
near her. 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


lU 

That speech from a man who was not an intimate 
neither shocked nor distressed her; she was too ex- 
perienced. She only smiled and wondered what 
it was the preface to. 

^^You have not come here to-night to say that?’’ 

‘Truly I have — truly,” said he. 

“Then,” said she, “pardon me, but you must have 
been unusually feeble-minded, Captain De Courcel, 
when you thought it worth while asking for an 
interview to tell me that. I expected to hear some- 
thing new — something startling.” 

“‘Ah, patience, dear madame,” said he, “that may 
come. You do not love to be told that you are 
beautiful ? — lovely ?” 

She shrugged her pretty plump shoulder, which 
shone very white — whiter far and more dazzling 
than any ivory, because it was soft and warm with 
life — it shone white and creamy, as only healthy 
human flesh can shine, against the black of her 
exquisite dinner-dress. 

“I suppose,” said she, “it is never disagreeable 
to any woman to be told she is good-looking.” 

“But it is not precious to you that I say it?” 

“Well,” she pouted, “as I have said, it is a dis- 
appointment; I thought you would have something 
to tell me of more interest and freshness.” 


.THE GREEN TURBANS. 


113 


*‘l have/’ said he, promptly. 

‘^And that is?” 

‘That I love you! — passionately! — with all my 
heart 1” 

“Really,” said she, looking him coldly in the 
face, “that certainly is somewhat startling! I am 
sorry that I cannot rise to the occasion and reply 
that I also love you — passionately! — with all my 
heart.” 

“That is of no consequence, dear madame, I as- 
sure you,” said the Frenchman. “When a man de- 
sires a woman, and loves her passionately, the wom- 
an always ends with loving him. So it will be 
with me and with you.” 

He seemed so confident that she began to take 
an interest in the matter. 

“Give me your hand,” said he. “I wish it. I 
pray you. If you please.” 

He put out his hand and took hers, and she 
looked at him and let him, a little afraid, and a 
little fascinated, and still a little curious concern- 
ing the sequel of this strange love-making. 

“Dear madame,” said he, “I desire this hand in 
marriage,” and before she was aware he stooped 
and kissed it. 

Brusquely she snatched her hand away. 


114 


THE GEEEN TUKBANS. 


'‘Now/’ said she, 'T find it possible to be serious. 
You have had a foolish ambition, Captain De Cour- 
cel, and you have lost your head, but do, I beg you, 
understand that I cannot marry you. I do not say 
I dislike you,” she continued, politely, but coldly, 
"for I think you are clever and handsome.” 

''Merci, madame.” The Captain permitted him- 
self to be a trifle sarcastic. 

"But,” she continued, "I will say frankly that, 
sentiment — love — apart, I cannot afford to marry 
you. I am very poor. It is necessary, my friend, 
that I make a rich marriage.” 

"Ah, it is for a joke, to laugh at, that you say 
you are poor, dear madame. I am poor, it is true; 
but soon, very soon, I shall be rich. Yet, with 
you own income, dear madame, why speak you of 
poverty? England is generous, is she not, to the 
widows of her officers? And there is money, ma- 
dame, you got from his Shereefian Majesty of 
Morocco; it makes a good capital sum.” 

"A paltry compensation for my husband’s loss: 
one hundred and twenty-five thousand francs — five 
thousand pounds sterling.” 

"You forget, dear madame, it is truly ten thousand 
pounds sterling — two hundred and fifty thousand 
francs. I do not speak only of compensation for jour 


THE GEEEl^ TUEBAFS. 


115 


husband’s death; I speak also of payment for the 
death of another. 

Molly gazed at him truly fascinated, as a poor 
rabbit may gaze at a threatening snake. And the 
Frenchman gazed steadily back at her. She lost 
all color; she grew almost grey; and she seemed 
to shrink till it was pitiful to see her. 

‘‘What do you mean?” she asked, mechanically, 
in words that tripped over each other. 

“Oh, dear madame, you have forgotten it,” said 
he. “It is not an agreeable story. But it is truly 
nothing, and when we are married — eh? — we shall 
laugh over it.” 

“We shall never be married, never! You are a 
hateful beast! You have heard some lies about 
me. What lies? What is the lie? You shall tell 
me!” 

“Does madame truly wish me to remind her?” 

“Tell me!” said she, madly, still gazing as if 
fascinated. “Tell me the lie!” 

(At that moment Alula came in from the bal- 
cony, and slipped out of the room unobserved by 
either. ) 

“This is the story, dear madame: The two 
brothers of Tetuan were believed to be in rebellion 
against the Sultan, and a precious price was put 


116 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


upon the life of the elder, the active, brother. The 
price was five thousand pounds sterling — one hun- 
dred and twenty-five thousand francs. And one 
afternoon there rode through the dust and heat into 
the Imperial Palace — to the house of the Sid’ El 
Helba — a lady to claim the price.” 

‘‘The price of what — of what?” she panted, mad- 
ly, like a fascinated creature being overcome. “You 
are deceived. Someone deceived you. I was there 
merely to make a call.” 

“Nay, dear madame,” said he, with his eye still 
fixed on her. “For I was in the next room, and 
I prepared the paper to which madame set her 
hand.” 

She rose at him in a frenzy. 

“You lie!” she said. “You lie! Wickedly lie!” 

She heard steps. She spun around, she saw Ali 
and Alula before her. She gazed at them a moment, 
swayed and fell on the carpet. 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


117 


CHAPTER XL 

“voo MANTAY."’ 

Molly was not at all the kind of woman who is 
given to fainting; she had good health and tol- 
erably good nerves as a result of her health, and 
she did not corset herself too tight. Why, then, 
did she lose herself at that moment and become as if 
she were dead? I think you will find the reason 
in this, that when she turned and beheld Ali with 
Alula, the sudden fear seized her that they must 
have heard the last wild part of her talk with Cap- 
tain De Courcel. Had she taken time, or had she 
been able to reflect that her talk with De Cour- 
cel, being in French, could be understood by neither, 
even if they had heard, she probably would not have 
given way. Moreover, there is this excuse for her, 
she did not know how long they had been within 
hearing; she had not observed Alula come in from 
the balcony to open the door to Ali, whom she had 
seen in the street. 


118 


THE GEEEH TUEBAHS. 


But there is no need to pity Molly in her faint- 
ing, because, as it chanced, it was the best thing 
she could have done for her own purpose. 

She looked very beautiful, lying on the carpet 
with her arms outspread, and Ali, as he gazed, felt 
burn in him the first spark of intimate concern for 
her. Alula at such a moment was but a child, she 
had no experience at all of fainting, and she merely 
looked on with clasped hands and wide eyes of 
amazement and dread. Ali had no experience 
either, but when he saw De Courcel, who probably 
had, kneel by Molly, open her bodice, undo her cor- 
set, and proceed to slap her palms — the palms in 
which a mysterious fate had been seen, but not ex- 
plained — he thought the operation rude and un- 
kindly. 

‘‘No, no!” said he. “That is not good!” 

Although he was not very tall, he was very strong. 
He pushed De Courcel away so brusquely that the 
Frenchman almost fell, took Molly up in his arms 
without difficulty, and looked around for a couch 
to lay her upon. Just then, as at his touch, Molly 
began to revive ; she breathed forth a fragrant sigh 
of relief, raised her arms, and — to Ali’s astonish- 
ment-clasped them about his neck. Whether Molly 
knew what she was about, or merely obeyed an un- 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


119 


conscious instinct to cling to what supported her, 
I will not seek to determine. But the effect on Ali 
was remarkable. He blushed like a boy, partly from 
a sudden sense of shame, partly from a new sense 
of pleasure. He laid her upon the couch, and stood 
over her. 

‘‘Yes,’’ he murmured, “it is now better — (far 
better; it is well.” 

As for De Courcel, he said nothing; but plainly, 
as he looked at Ali and glanced at Alula, he gave 
himself furiously to thought. Nor did Alula say 
a word, but she stood with hands clenched, and with 
a passion of jealousy flashing from her eyes. 

When on the couch, Molly quickly came to her- 
self without further aid or encouragement. She 
opened her eyes and looked around; then looked 
down upon her own disarray, and obviously under- 
stood and remembered. Her first thought was for 
appearances. 

“Oh!” she exclaimed, drawing her bodice to- 
gether. “Will someone ring, please?” De Courcel 
pounced at the electric button. She put a hand 
to her brow. “I fainted, I suppose?” she murmured. 
“How very silly of me 1” 

“Woman is weak,” said Ali, sententiously. “But 
now you are better.” 


120 


THE GEEEH TUEBAHS. 


She scanned his face closely; she saw there noth- 
ing but blended shyness and kindness, and she was 
reassured. A maid appeared. 

“Help me to my room, Mary,” said Molly. “Will 
you come with me, Alula? You gentlemen will 
excuse my dismissal of you.” 

De Courcel reached the door to hold it open. “I 
will give myself the pleasure,” said he, as he bowed, 
“to call to-morrow and inquire for madame.” 

She merely inclined her head and passed but. 

De Courcel and Ali left the flat together. When 
they were in the street, Ali put a question which 
it troubled De Courcel to answer. 

“Why,” he asked, in the Moorish speech, “did 
the Lalla Neale sink on the floor as one dead when 
I entered?” 

It was a question which had to be answered at 
once; and De Courcel, on the spur of the insistent 
moment, answered: 

“The sight of you, sidi, and Alula together over- 
came her heart. As you wisely said, sidi, woman 
is weak.” 

Ali said no more; but his glance informed the 
Frenchman that the truth of his answer was doubted. 
Presently De Courcel proposed to go his own way, 
while Ali went his. 


,THE GREEN TURBANS. 


121 


‘^Nay/^ said Ali ‘^come with me and smoke a 
cigar ; the hour is not late.'' 

The Grand Shereef and Prince of Tetuan shared 
chambers in the Temple with Dr. Neale. If De 
Courcel went witli Ali, he was almost certain to 
meet the doctor; and the doctor and he (for some 
reason which did not lie in him) were somewhat 
cool in their relations. He therefore sought to 
make excuse; but, as soon as he began, Ali inter- 
rupted him. 

‘'Come," said he, in English, taking the French- 
man's arm, “I wish it. Please." 

And De Courcel, because he wished, for his own 
ends, to be agreeable to Ali, yielded and went. 
They took a hansom, and in a few minutes they 
arrived at the Embankment entrance to the Middle 
Temple. The chambers were an ample suite in 
the new building overlooking the gardens. The 
building is fine, and the site is splendid; and De 
Courcel (who had been in the chambers before) 
envied the doctor and the Prince their joint abode. 

Dr. Neale was in ; and it caught the Frenchman’s 
notice that chair and couch were littered with cloth- 
ing, gun-cases, and guns. 

“Ah, dear doctor," said De Courcel, in French, 
“you travel ? You go away for le sportf^ 


122 


THE GREEK TURBAKS. 


‘The Prince and 1” said the doctor, “are invited 
to Scotland to shoot. We go early to look at Edin- 
burgh and other places, and to avoid the rush be- 
fore the Twelfth.” 

“What is the Twelfth, my dear doctor?” he asked. 

“Ah, you do not know ? It is the great day when 
begins the great shooting of the grouse. And the 
grouse, my dear Captain, is a bird that is very 
good to eat.” 

“And you will make a battue — a great slaughter? 
My compliments, dear doctor. You others, you 
English, you always say, do you not: Tt is a. 
fine day ; let us go and kill something’ ?” 

“Yes,” said the doctor, curtly; “we always like 
to kill something — if it be only a lie.” 

De Courcel always managed to rub Dr. Neale the 
wrong way. Meanwhile he had been set down in 
a chair at the open bow window, with that mag- 
nificent sweep of the Thames between Westminster 
and Blackfriars before his eyes, with a cigar between 
his lips, and with wine of Burgundy ready to fiis 
hand. 

“Ah,” he exclaimed, looking out,” it is splendid 
— it is magnificent! You are very agreeably sit- 
uated here I” 

Then Ali caught and held his attention by ad- 
dressing an odd question to the doctor. 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


123 


‘^What, my learned cousin/’ he asked, in Moor- 
ish, “is the meaning of these words : 'Voo mantay! 
V 00 mantay! Mashamma mantay!' 

“What are the words, Ali?” said the doctor. 
“I know not the words.” 

But De Courcel recognized the words at once. 
They were those which Ali must have overheard 
on entering Madame Neale’s drawing-room— the 
words which she uttered to De Courcel himself be- 
fore she fell in her faint : '^Vous mentez! Vous men- 
tez! Mechamment mentez!” (“You lie! You lie! 
Wickedly lie!”) 

“I conceive, cousin,” said Ali with a frown, “that 
I speak the words of plainness. As my ear heard 
the words, so doth my tongue utter them.” 

“Of a truth, Ali,” said the doctor, “I know not 
the words. Are they Moorish — Arabic?” 

“Nay, cousin,” said Ali, impatiently. “Surely 
they are English; an English mouth uttered them.” 

“I think I know,” then put in De Courcel, “what 
the Sidi Ali would be at.” 

And thus he cleverly got his own tale told. Ali 
had shown a surprising restraint and subtlety in 
seeking to understand what had happened in Molly’s 
drawing-room, but he was far more subtle than 
Ali ; he was, as the Bible says of the serpent, “more 
subtle than any beast of the field.” 


124 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


dined this evening with Madame Neale. After 
dinner we talked — but we talked — of the days when 
I had the felicity of her conversation in Morocco. 
She did felicitate me on my fortune in passing from 
being a Captain of Moorish artillery to being agent 
of his Shereefian Highness the Sultan in England, 
and she said: 'Vous monies! Vous monies! Votis 
marches a monier!’ ” (“You rise! You rise! You 
go on to rise!”) “Instantly, on the word, Sidi Ali 
appeared with Alula, and Madame Neale sank down 
in a faint from the heat, from the sudden appear- 
ance of the sidi, from I know not what.’’ 

“Fon maniay,” murmured Ali, thoughtfully, re- 
peating his own pronunciation. 

“Ah!” exclaimed the doctor, hearing it with a 
new suggestion. ''Vous meniesf It might be 
that!” 

“Sir,” said De Courcel, “do you say I lie?” 

“No, sir,” answered the doctor, drily. “I only 
considered how much difference th^ change of a 
little vowel might make. But,” he continued, “Molly 
fainted, did she? I never heard of her doing such 
a thing before. She was better, I suppose, before 
you left her ?” 

“She was better,” answered De Courcel, “and 
gone to her chamber.” 


THE GKEEIST TURBANS. 


125 


'T wonder/’ said the doctor, turning to Ali, ‘hf 
I ought to run round and see if she expects to be 
able to travel to-morrow?” 

It is doubtful whether Captain De Courcel had 
anything you could call ‘^a heart,” properly and 
figuratively speaking. But he had a certain sensi- 
bility, a certain pride in himself and his clever- 
ness, and if we regard that as a target, the doctor’s 
question was a random shot which hit the centre. 

^^Ah,” said he, with a smile, ^'Madame Neale — 
does she also travel to-morrow ?” 

'‘Yes,” answered the doctor. "We all travel 
together.” 

"Ah! ah!” murmured the Frenchman, in a tone 
of agreeable, congratulatory surprise. "And to the 
same place ?” 

"Yes,” said the doctor; "we all go north.” 

"To the Countess,” added Ali, with a smile. "All! 
To shoot the grouse.” 

"And the ladies also shoot the grouse?” mur- 
mured the Frenchman. “Happy grouse !” 

But he had heard enough, more than enough, 
and he made haste to depart. He begged that he 
might be excused for abandoning their agreeable 
conversation, but he had much work to do that 
night, very much work to prepare for the Sid’ El 


126 


THE GEEEH THEBANS. 


Helba, who was coming soon to England on his 
special mission. For him was no holiday, no shoot- 
ing of grouse; at least not yet. He rose to go. 

‘^And,’’ asked Ali, at the last, somewhat wistfully 
one would have said, ‘^you cannot tell why Madame 
Neale fell on the floor in a faint? No?” 

^‘My dear Prince,” said De Courcel, ‘T can tell 
no more than I have told.” 

But when he was out he said to himself, while 
he flung away the end of his cigar with a vicious 
jerk : ‘The foolish beast ! She thinks to run away 
and escape me? But she is at the end of a cord, 
and the cord is around her pretty neck!” 

He returned to his hotel in the neighborhood of 
Leicester-square, and immediately wrote an appeal 
to Miss Cameron. If she loved him, if she had any 
regard for his fortune, for his future prosperity, 
she must contrive to get him invited to the Coun- 
tess’s to “shoot the grouse.” 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


127 


CHAPTER XIL 
MISS Cameron’s dream. 

“It is impossible to get you invited to join the 
house party. It is fully made up, and consists 
chiefly of ‘The Friends of Moorish Freedom.’ But 
I have engaged for you a lodging close by, and 
you can come when you like. That, I imagine, 
will suit your purpose, which evidently is not to see 
me but to carry on your dangerous schemes.” 

That is the reply which De Courcel received from 
Miss Cameron after more than a week. It was 
dated from the Countess’s place in the Highlands, 
whither it had followed De Courcel’s friend from 
her London address. The arrangement made for 
him was not much to his liking, but he accepted 
it for want of a better, and in due time he found 
himself turned out of a slow train, to his great 
amazement, into a wild and desolate country, where 


US 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


were no trees and no cultivated fields, nothing but 
a dark land and gloomy, frowning mountains, to 
which the mists clung. 

“This,” said he to himself, “must be the back 
end of the universe.” 

The lodging prepared for him seemed as cheer- 
less and horrible as the country. It was not at an 
inn — for it seemed to him that there were no inns 
in all that inhospitable land. It was at the bare, 
meagre icottage of a gamekeeper, and it needed 
some time and effort on the part of his friend. Miss 
Cameron, to convince him that the lodging was the 
best that could be found, and that it had not been 
chosen to annoy, humiliate, and “destroy” him. 

Meanwhile, Molly and Alula, the Grand Shereef 
of Tetuan and his cousin the doctor, and the rest, 
were lodged spaciously and comfortably in the grim 
old castle which had once dominated the wild in- 
habitants of that wild region. Even if De Cour- 
cel had not desired to have ready access to these, 
it would be necessary for him to show himself with 
some plausible reason for his coming to that re- 
mote place, for he could not possibly remain hid- 
den, and it would never do for him to be discovered 
skulking. 

He had purchased for the trip a knickerbocker 


THE GEEEH TURBANS. 129 

suit and a deerstalker hat with a feather (he in- 
sisted on the feather, although the London tailor 
told him it was not the English fashion), and in 
these and patent shoes he walked to the castle the 
day after Iris arrival, with his reason for coming 
ready in his mouth. He had not walked a long 
way before he discovered that his patent shoes were 
a mistake; and he was tramping along the wind- 
ing avenue of the castle in no agreeable temper, 
when a voice from among the dwarf larches that 
bordered the avenue made him halt. 

‘‘You think you look an English gentleman, but 
you do not.’' 

And the dark-eyed Alula, brilliant with health, 
pushed through the trees and stood before him. He 
set his feet together and whipped off his deerstalker, 
feather and all, in a low obeisance. 

“Beautiful Lalla,” said De Courcel, in Moorish, 
“you appear in this dark land like the sun in his 
brightness, like a lily in bloom in a country that 
is without flowers.” 

“I wish,” said she, haughtily, in good English 
though with a doubtful accent, “to speak nothing 
— only English. I wish to say English words to 
all people.” 

“How then, miss,” asked De Courcel, who could 


130 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


manage English pretty well, “will you make your 
father to comprehend when he come soon?” 

“Soon — does he come?” she cried, breaking into 
her Moorish speech. 

“Fair Lalla,” answered De Courcel, following hef 
into her own. language, “the Sid’ El Helba will 
come very soon. He has written a letter to me from 
Tangier, saying that he will in six days remove 
his feet from the solid land, and set them upon the 
quaking ship that will carry him over the heaving 
sea.” 

“Then,” said Alula, making a quick calculation 
on her fingers, “he is already on the ship that shakes 
and goes without wind, for your letter must have 
taken a week to travel.” 

“By this hour,” said De Courcel, “he must be 
upon the uncertain sea. And that, fair Lalla, is 
the very reason why I have journeyed hither, to in- 
form the daughter of the Sid’ El Helba and Ali 
of Tetuan.” 

“Why did you not send a letter?” asked Alula. 

“It seemed to me better to come,” said the French- 
man. “Moreover, it is my duty, as I have already 
told the Lalla, to follow all the movements of Ali 
of Tetuan.” 

“Show me my father’s letter,” demanded Alula, 
as on a sudden suspicion. 


THE GEEEH TURBANS. 


131 


He clapped his hands to his pockets, thrust them 
in, but found nothing. The pretence was too patent 
even to deceive a very young girl, and Alula was 
not so young in mind as she might seem. 

‘T have it not/' said he. ‘Tt must be left in Lon- 
don." 

‘‘Sidi Captain," said she, shaking a finger at him, 
‘‘you never had that letter. You have received no 
letter from my father. Why should my father 
not also have written a letter to me?" 

“Because," said De Courcel, with a spiteful smile, 
“the Lalla, fair though she be, is not able to read." 

“My father would not Have withheld his hand 
for that," retorted Alula. “And," she added, “I 
could have asked the Sidi Captain to read it to 
me. But the Sidi Captain has told lies. The truth 
is not in him. . . . Why, then, have you come 

here?" she demanded, in a sudden burst of anger. 
“To plan more mischief against Ali of Tetuan!" 

The subtle Frenchman regarded the girl an in- 
stant, with a new thought working in him. 

“It is strange, Lalla Alula," said he, “that you 
so utterly mistake me. Why should I seek to do 
mischief to the Grand Shereef ? Shall I tell the Lalla 
a secret thing? There is one here whom she does 
not love, a woman. Ha ! Is it not so ? The thought 


132 THE GEEEN TURBANS. 

of the Lalla Neale is bitterness to the heart of 
the Lalla Alula.’' Alula involuntarily clenched 
her little fists. ‘Tt is truly the Lalla Neale/’ said 
De Courcel, ‘^that I seek here, and not your Ali of 
Tetuan at all.” 

Alula considered him a moment. 

‘‘Why do you seek the Lalla Neale?” she asked. 

“I wish to marry her.” 

“Then you love her?” exclaimed the girl. 

“Passionately — with all my heart !” said the 
Frenchman. 

“It is strange,” she mused, in suspicion. “Your 
words a moment since sounded as if you hated 
her.” 

“I love her so much,” he explained, “that I hate 
her desire to avoid me. See, Lalla. Let us make 
a bargain. I will help you with Ali of Tetuan, if 
you will help me with the Lalla Neale.” 

He thought she was certain to agree. After a 
moment’s thought, and a careful scrutiny of his 
face and person, she surprised him by refusing. 

“No,” said she, frankly, “I will not enter into a 
bargain with you. I do not trust you. You are 
wicked, and you plan against the Lalla Neale some- 
thing I do not know. I do not love her ; but I will 
not help you in your wickedness against her.” 


,THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


133 


**So be it, Lalla/’ said he. “Then I cannot help 
you with the Grand Shereef.” 

“Sir Captain/’ said she, in the serenity of maid- 
enly reserve and pride, “I have not asked your 
help.” 

She turned to walk oi¥, and let him continue 
his approach to the castle. 

“All are gone,” she called after him presently, “to 
shoot the grouse — except the Countess.” 

He continued his disagreeable tramp in his patent 
shoes, saw the Countess, told her the same plausible 
fib as he had tried upon Alula to account for his 
presence, and was invited to dinner. He returned 
in the evening in good time for dinner. The first 
person he encountered was Molly. 

“Come in here,” said she, in a firm tone of au- 
thority; “I want to speak to you.” 

He followed her into the library, somewhat sur- 
prised that she had forestalled him in seeking an in- 
terview: plainly, she had recovered her nerve. 

“Ah,” he began, in his supple and voluble French, 
“how charming, dear lady, you look in this abomi- 
nable country ! But — what a country !” 

“Attention, sir!” said she, quite calmly but se- 
verely. “We have not time to waste on banalities 
and compliments. You have pursued me here. 
Why?” 


134 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


“Pursued you, dear madame?” 

“Oh, I know the lie you told the Countess; but 
it does not deceive me. Why have you come?’' 

“Must I be rude — brutal?” 

“Be' as rude and brutal as you like; you cannot 
show yourself more rude nor more brutal than I 
know you to be.” 

“Then, dear madame, I beg to remind you of 
our interrupted conversation in your very agree- 
able apartment in London. I then, dear madame, 
did you the honor to ask you to be my wife.” 

“And I then, sir, made you the answer that I 
had other designs for myself.” 

“I then begged to remind you, madame, of rea- 
sons why you should reconsider that decision. You 
have reconsidered, have you not?” 

“There is no need for reconsideration. I knew 
then, as I know now, that I would not marry you 
under any circumstances. I will only marry a gen- 
tleman; I would not marry a spy and a bully if 
every hair of his heal and his beard were hung with 
diamonds of Golconda !” 

“You will permit me to say, dear madame, that 
your tone is singularly unbecoming. Do you for- 
get, madame, that a word from me to Ali of Tetuan 
would bring upon you the fury of the unquenchable 


THE GREEH TURBANS. 135 

desire for vengeance that burns in him night and 
day?” 

She was pale for an instant; but she never lost 
her resolute demeanor nor lowered the bold front 
which from the first moment of the interview she 
had presented to the Frenchman. 

'T expected you to threaten me in that way,” said 
she. “I do not wish to be troubled with threats. 
How much money do you want to go away and 
trouble me no more ?” 

“Money, madame?” he exclaimed, in indignation. 

“Really, why this pretence ? What else but money 
did you look for in proposing to marry me?” 

“One of the most charming and beautiful women 
in the world!” he answered, with his hand on his 
heart. 

“Heavens!” she cried, stung for the instant to 
real anger. “For downright brutal insolence to 
women and want of sentiment, commend me to a 
polished Frenchman ! Again I ask : ‘What sum of 
money? Five thousand pounRs?' ” 

“Ah, madame !” he exclaimed. “That fatal sum !” 

Pallor overspread her again; and she was silent. 
But she had truly mistaken her method with him. 
He rose. 

“No, madame!” said he. “No money! I will 
not take your money ! I will make you marry me 1” 


136 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


''Never !’" said she. 

"Be it!’’ said he. "Then it is a duel between us, 
madame ?” 

"Absolutely,” said she. 

He opened the door for her, and she passed out 
without another word. 

That evening the hospitable Countess asked Cap- 
tain De Courcel if he would like to join the shoot- 
ing-party of next morning. He thanked her effu- 
sively, and said that he would. He appeared in good 
time, and borrowed a gun. The shooting party was 
made up of both men and women. Of the latter 
the best shots were Molly and Miss Cameron; and 
they, therefore, were to the fore with the best shots 
among the men — of whom Dr. Neale was one. Cap- 
tain De Courcel was not a bad shot, but he was 
unacquainted with the ways of the grouse and the 
method of the sportsmen. Yet he was excited by 
the sport, and eager to get at the birds. He thrust 
himself recklessly into the line of fire of the other 
guns. He did that once too often. He was in 
Molly’s line of fire. He received her whole charge, 
and fell as if dead. 

"Now you’ve done it, Molly!” murmured Dr. 
Dick, who was near her. "For a clever shot like 
you, that was rather clumsy!” 


THE GEEEK TURBAlSrS. 


137 


All who saw the accident ran towards the fallen 
rnan, whom a couple of gillies had already raised. 

^*Oh, I am so sorry !” moaned Molly, looking ter- 
ribly troubled and exceedingly pale — which was but 
natural under the circumstances. 

**Oh’ you couldn’t help it, my dear,” said Miss 
Cameron, but the glance she gave Molly plainly 
meant: ‘‘You spiteful beast! I shouldn’t wonder 

if you did it on purpose I” 

Dr. Neale examined De Courcel, and ordered him 
to be carried to the castle. There the doctor dis- 
covered that the charge of shot had lodged singularly 
high, and had scattered very little. It was feared 
that some of the shot had entered the lungs. But 
the Frenchman had great strength and vitality. He 
had never lost consciousness; and he could talk 
with tolerable freedom. Miss Cameron established 
herself as his nurse, and was alone with him for 
some hours after the doctor had completed his es- 
timate of the case. 

“Will he die?” asked Molly, meeting her brother- 
in-law with a white face. 

“I don’t think he will,” answered Dr. Dick. 

“Thank God I” she exclaimed. 

Yet Molly continued a prey to anxiety; for wHat 
might not De Courcel be telling Miss Cameron in 


138 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


her watch by his bedside? The evening brought 
her some reason for fear. 

Dr. Neale ate his dinner hurriedly, and went to 
relieve Miss Cameron. Miss Cameron came to din- 
ner and remained with the company during the even- 
ing. They talked of the wet weather and of the won- 
derfully gloomy scenery which predisposed to super- 
stitions, to doleful and foreboding thoughts; and 
they talked of the unfortunate accident of the morn- 
ing. 

‘T felt sure,’’ said Miss Cameron, ^That some- 
thing terrible was going to happen during the day, 
for I had the strangest and most horrible dream.” 

The whole company kept silence to hear; for 
Miss Cameron had the second-sight, and her dreams 
always had a meaning. 

‘T dreamt,” said she, ‘That I was in a hot, hot 
Eastern city. The streets were dirty and narrow, 
and I had to pant for breath. I was wandering 
there, seeking something — I don’t know what — 
and I found myself in a pleasant house with a cool 
court, with a fountain and a garden of orange- 
trees beyond. And I went into a room of that house, 
and came upon two young men in green turbans. 
One of them I knew at once : it was Prince Ali of 
Tetuan. The other — I could not see his face ” 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


139 


‘Tt was my brother Mohammed/’ broke in Ali, 
quite simply. “Yes?” 

“And then,” she continued, “I became aware that 
there were also two other men there — Englishmen; 
and I knew one of them to be Dr. Neale. We said 
how-d’e-do, and we talked. And then there came a 
great clatter out in the street of horsemen, and a 
hammering at the gate. In a minute the place was 
filled with black soldiers, and there was fighting; 
and the second man in the green turban was dragged 
away by them !” 

“My brother !” said Ali, with a catch in his voice. 
He sprang to his feet, stepped across the room to 
Miss Cameron, seized her wrist with a fierce grip, 
and looked into her face with blazing eyes. “And 
who bring the soldiers? Who say my brother was 
there? I look for that man forever! Say who he 
was I” 

Miss Cameron was somewhat terrified by his ve- 
hemence. 

“I seemed to myself to know who had betrayed 
him,” she faltered, looking down in uncertainty. 

“Hah!” growled Ali. “Say who! Quick! Please! 
I wish it!” 

“Oh, it is too terrible !” broke out Molly, in dire 
distress, sobbing and weeping. “Don’t go on! 


140 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


Don’t let them go on! It was then that my poor 
husband was killed !” 

‘T seemed to know/’ said Miss Cameron, recover- 
ing herself and grasping Ali’s hand; “but I cannot 
now remember 1” 

And he fell back to his seat with a sigh and a 


groan. 


THE GEEEN TUKBANS. 


141 


CHAPTER XIIL 

MOLLY AND ALL 

But these things did not warn Molly of the 
danger of persisting in her resolution to marry 
Ali, and become Grand Shereefia and Princess of 
Tetuan. On the contrary, they seemed to make her 
more resolved than ever to hasten that consumma- 
tion of her ambition. She even made the danger- 
ous dream of Miss Cameron — if it was a dream — 
a means of advancing her purpose. It gave her art 
excuse for talking sympathetically with Ali about 
his brother and his brother’s schemes, and of urg- 
ing him to fulfill them. For there floated before 
her and led her on a brilliant vision of greatness 
— of Ali become the Emperor of a reformed Moroc- 
co (was he not already of more esteem than the Sul- 
tan among the people?), and of herself as the Em- 
press. To accomplish the fulfillment of so splendid 
a vision was surely worth a great effort. Many 
more scrupulous people than Mojly would have 
agreed with her about that. 


142 


THE GKEEH THEBANS. 


She devoted herself to Ali. She shot with him, 
she walked with him, and she talked with him, 
and taught him English — taught him so well that 
he made far more rapid progress than with his 
professional paid tutor in London. That devotion 
was generally noted, and Dr. Neale took occasion 
to remark on it to Molly, when they chanced to meet 
alone one morning at breakfast. 

‘Tt is not often lately that I have had the op- 
portunity of a word with you, Molly,’’ said he. 

‘‘Do you miss it?” said she, with a laugh.- 

“Awfully,” said he. “You’re very thick with Ali, 
aren’t you?” 

“Pretty thick,” she answered. 

“They make remarks about it.” 

“Let them,” said she. 

“You’ve determined to go through with it, then?” 

“Quite.” 

“He’s young,” said the doctor; “and he’s very 
much of a barbarian.” 

“I’m a voracious widow, you mean,” she laughed. 
“Well, I am, and without scruple and without com- 
punction. I can swallow him easily.” 

“But, you’ll excuse me, Molly, he does not seem 
to me a man to be easily caught or kept.” 

“My dear Dick,” said Molly, “you’ve read a good 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


143 


deal in your time, and you have probably read of 
the Frenchman who said that a clever and good- 
looking woman could marry any man she wished 
to marry. I wish to marry Ali, and I shall marry 
him.’’ 

‘‘Very well,” said he. “But 1 think you will 
regret it.” 

There was no more to be saM. If she was 
resolved, she was resolved; and argument was use- 
less. 

So Molly’s scheme went foj'ward towards a suc- 
cessful issue. Molly was clever, and Molly was 
beautiful and attractive. Her greatest enemy could 
not deny she had these qualities; and between them 
Ali, who was not fish-blooded, was ensnared. An 
unrehearsed adventure brought matters to a crisis. 

They happened to find themselves together and 
away from their party in the search for grouse. 
In leaping from one stone to another in a boggy 
place, Molly slipped and twisted her ankle. She 
tried to walk, but could not. Without hesitation 
Ali took her up in his arms. 

“I will carry you,” said he, in obvious triumph, 
“all the way !” 

He had not held her so since the evening she 
had fainted, and the renewed contact, with Molly 


144 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


quite conscious and alert, seemed too much for him. 
He strained her to his breast and kissed her over 
and over, murmuring: “Beautiful love! — beauti- 
ful! Sweet love! — sweet!” He was still more in- 
flamed to discover in a second or two that Molly 
was returning his embrace and his kiss. The boulder 
which had produced the crisis was handy, and he sat 
down upon it with Molly still in his arms. 

“You are mine!” said he. 

“I am yours!” she answered. 

And for some while little more was said. At 
length they resumed speech. 

“And you will be my wife?” said he. 

“Yes,” she whispered in his ear. 

And the whisper was intoxicatingly sweet to him. 
It suggested the shyness and sublety, the secrecy and 
shame of love. His Eastern sense of romance was 
fired, and he became poetic and rhythmic. And still 
his brother was in all his thought. 

“Mohammed,” said he, “was worthier of you 
than I am. But we will go away to the country 
and the people that my brother loved, and we will 
fulfill the purpose of Mohammed’s life. Mohammed 
was wise and brave. I am only strong and brave; 
but you, my love, will add the wisdom. You have, 
I think, the wisest head in all this world. The 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


145 


great King Solomon of ancient days was not wiser 
than you. When I show you, brave and beautiful, 
to my people, I will add also: *She is the wisest 
of women. She is for wisdom and understanding 
more precious than rubies !’ W e will go away soon, 
my love, to my own land and my own people. I 
sicken at heart for them. There is something of 
English in my color, but my blood and my life are 
all Moorish.” 

Then she answered wisely that she would go with 
him to his own land and help him to fulfill his 
purpose. 

“But we must move warily, my Ali. Do not for- 
get that the Sultan is your enemy still, and seeks 
your life ” 

“The Fileli usurper!” broke in Ali. “The son 
of a slave!” 

“And also,” she continued, “the Sid’ El Helba, 
and it may be others. It will therefore be prudent 
to say nothing of our marriage until we marry.” 

And Ali agreed that it would be wise; and then 
they set out to accomplish the five or six miles 
between them and the castle. They took between 
two and three hours to get over the ground, for Ali 
carried Molly, and she insisted upon his taking 
frequent rests. When they approached the castle 


146 


THE GEEEH TUEBAHS. 


she made him set her down, and she limped with 
his aid. But all the world guessed, when they heard 
of the accident, that she had not limped all the way. 
Some even doubted whether there was a sprain 
at all, and thought it was fortunate for her tale 
that the doctor was a relation. 

That evening there came what Molly had been 
anxiously on the watch for ever since her last pass- 
age with De Courcel — a request from him for an 
interview with Ali. He was recovering, and was 
able to see others than his nurse and the doctor. 
At the first opportunity after De Courcel had set 
forth his reason for coming north, she had said to 
Ali : ''He is a subtle, crafty, and desperate man. 
Moreover, he is a spy. If he ever seeks private 
speech with you, or secretly sends you a letter, let 
me know, and I will tell you something.’^ 

That evening then, Ali came to the couch where 
she reclined with her hurt ankle, and said: "The 
Frenchman seeks to speak with me alone.” 

She turned very pale. It was a desperate crisis, 
but she had prepared to meet it. The Frenchman, 
doubtless, intended to denounce her — to destroy her 
with a well-laid mine. But if he could not mine, she 
could counter-mine. 

"Come and sit down here,” said she. (They 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


14^ 


were in the drawing-room of the castle.) “Let us 
talk Moorish, and it will be as if we talked alone.” 

So they sat down together among the company, 
but not of them, Ali eager and wondering. 

“I do not know,” Molly began, “what the French- 
man may have to say; but I seek to warn thee, 
Sidi Ali, to be careful. He is thy enemy since 
he works for El Helba, and he is also mine.” 

“Thy enemy?” exclaimed Ali. “Wherefore an 
enemy to thee?” 

“A beast balked of a mate,” said Molly, “is 
ever spiteful and vicious. I have refused him with 
scorn, sidi, and he may guess that I favor thee.” 

“He dared to put forth his hand to thee? He?” 
said Ali, with difficulty restraining his rage. “Ha! 
And that was why I found thee fainting?” 

“That was why.” 

“The beast! The pig! The dog of a French- 
man! I will denounce him for the basest of men! 
He to seek thee !” 

“Nay, sidi,” said Molly, “be calm and wary, for he 
is subtle as a serpent. And there is another thing of 
more import against him than that he sought me. I 
fear to name it, for I have no surety, but only a 
strong suspicion — the suspicion of a woman to whom 
a man is displeasing.” 


148 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


‘The suspicion of a wise woman/’ said Ali. 

‘T think I have already convinced the sidi that the 
Frenchman is here, and was in Fez, the spy of his 
country, as well as the servant of the Sultan. He 
takes the pay of both; but he is a man greedy of 
money, and without scrupje how he may get it.” 

“That is reasonable and true,” said Ali. 

“Now, Sidi Ali, who — I hesitate whether I should 
say it ” 

“Say on,” said he. “Say on.” 

“Who was more subtle, or knew more that hap- 
pened in Fez than he? He had his spies and re- 
porters among the people of Fez themselves, for the 
men of Fez are as false as they are proud. The 
Frenchman is ever jealous of the Englishman. On 
what house, therefore, in Fez would he keep closer 
watch than on the abode of the English doctor, the 
rather that I dwelt there? When you and your 
brother came that day, some bird of the air must have 
carried the news. Someone saw you come. Who ? 
Who saw, or who heard of your being seen, and sold 
the news ?” 

“By the beard of the Prophet! By the name of 
Allah ! It must be true ! It is plain ! I have been 
a fool not to think of it 1 But you are wise ! Now 
the traitor’s life is in my hands, and this is a fit place 
to end it I” 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


149 


He spoke in a low, quick voice, as if he felt little 
passion. But the fashion of his face was changed; 
his hair, of head and beard, seemed to stiffen and 
bristle, and his fingers worked like the claws of a 
wild beast. He was evidently in a paroxysm of 
passion, and Molly grew terribly afraid that he 
might go straightway and murder the Frenchman. 
So she spoke soothingly of the necessity for 
prudence. 

‘‘Dear sidi,’’ said she, “be calm and wary. Re- 
member this is not your own land. If you sought 
to take vengeance here, the law of the land would 
take your life, although you are a stranger and a 
prince. The law of the English is no respecter of 
persons. Moreover, we have no actual proof that he 
is the man. Wait, sidi, and nurse your vengeance 
in your warm breast. Wait till we return to your 
own land. He is certain to return also. Then you 
may seek out proof that he is the man ; and then you 
may freely take your revenge on him. But, my dear 
sidi, be wise now. Do or say nothing rash, and let 
him not even guess that you suspect him ; else he may 
fear, and henceforward avoid you.’^ 

“Your counsel is the best of wisdom and pru- 
dence,’' said Ali, “and I will follow it. It is given 
by the most prudent and most beautiful of women.” 


150 


THE GEEEN TURBAHS. 


So in that frame of mind he departed to hold his 
interview with De Courcel, and Molly lay on her 
couch waiting his return — lay in a torture of anxiety, 
as if on a rack of the Inquisition. He returned after 
a few minutes, although to her the time seemed to 
have been hours long. 

‘Tt is well,” said Ali, in answer to her inquiring 
look, ‘That you gave me the advice to keep a com- 
mand upon myself — for I should have torn him to 
pieces where he lay.” 

“What did he say?” asked Molly, — you may guess 
with how much eagerness and anxiety. 

“Say? He uttered not — because I would not per- 
mit him — but he let peep from his mind a most 
monstrous accusation ! Truly he is your enemy ! A 
spiteful, vicious enemy !” 

“What was his accusation?” Molly asked, with 
dry mouth. 

“This he said: Tt has been brought to my ears,, 
sidi, that you have become greatly interested in a 
certain lady who is in this castle.’ I answered that 
it might be that I was interested in a lady; it was 
natural to be interested in ladies. ‘But,’ said he, 
‘beware, sidi, of the particular lady whom I mean. 
She is attractive; she is beautiful; she is subtle. 
She will ensnare thee if thou dost not beware. But 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


151 


take heed; for her hand is soiled with the most 
abominable crime thou canst conceive. And be- 
cause I have knowledge of it, she has tried to shoot 
me. 

Molly breathed again. “What saidst thou?’’ 

“I forbade him to speak. I called him pig, and 
dog, and liar; and I said I would tear him all to 
pieces if he said aught more about the lady. He 
said : ‘You will hear me one day, sidi. I will wait. 
It is check; it is one to her.’ What could he mean?” 

“Perhaps,” murmured Molly, “he thought of the 
game. And he said no more ?” 

“He said no more.” She put out her hand to him. 
He took it and looked at it, murmuring: “It is a 
white, sweet, pure hand.” 

A sound that was something of a sigh and some- 
thing of a sob fluttered from her mouth, for that was 
the hand in which she had received the price of his 
brother’s life. 


152 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

MAN AND WIFE. 

Many of my readers may exclaim: ‘‘How could 
Molly play so terribly dangerous a game? How 
could she propose, and resolutely carry out her desire, 
to marry the brother of the man whom she had so 
infamously betrayed ?” 

If you consider Molly’s case with careful thought, 
you will see that it is probable she had no proper idea 
of the enormity of her offence; and if she believed 
that she had done no great wrong in selling her news 
of Ali’s brother, it is probable that she saw no great 
odium and not much danger in marrying Ali. She 
would prefer that he should know nothing of what 
she had done, and she strove valiantly to keep the 
knowledge from him, for he had a passionate preju- 
dice against it ; but, at the worst, if he finally got to 
know, she probably flattered herself that she would 
be forgiven. 

In that mood, watchful, but tolerably light-hearted. 


THE GEEEH TUEBAHS. 


153 


Molly continued. And the shooting-party at the 
castle broke up, and went their several ways. De 
Courcel — almost completely recovered — returned to 
London ; and so did Ali and Alula and Molly and the 
doctor, because the Sid’ El Helba was expected to 
reach England in September on his special mission 
for the further discussion of a Commercial Treaty. 

As soon as the clever and active Molly was estab- 
lished again in her elegant flat, she set herself to 
hasten on her marriage with Ali. She was deter- 
mined that it should be accomplished before the 
arrival of the Moorish Ambassador; for who knew 
what difficulties might then arise to hinder or blight 
her scheme if it were unfulfilled? She had not in- 
tended that anyone should know of the marriage be- 
forehand; but reflection told her that she must con- 
sult someone concerning the proper kind of ceremony 
that would make her union with Ali binding and in- 
dissoluble. He was a Mohammedan, although she 
was (presumably) a Christian. It was impossible, 
therefore, that the ceremony should be performed in 
a church ; and it could not be performed in a mosque, 
for the sufficient reason that there was no mosque 
then in London. She took Dr. Dick, therefore, into 
her confidence. At first he refused to have anything 
to do with the matter. “It is not, nor it cannot come 


154 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


to, good,” said he, quoting the poet; but at length, 
after cajolement and entreaty, he advised that the 
only ceremony possible was the civil, before a regis- 
trar, and he finally consented to act as witness. 

So one morning before twelve — an unusually 
early hour for her — Molly left her flat in a very ele- 
gant heliotrope dress, stepped into a hansom in Vic- 
toria-street, and was driven beyond Temple Bar to a 
registry oifice. There she met Prince Ali of Tetuan, 
faultlessly arrayed like an English gentleman in 
top hat and morning coat, with a flower in his but- 
tonhole. Dr. Dick, arrayed in like manner, pre- 
sented Molly with a small bouquet of choice flowers. 
And then, in the presence of an impassive registrar in 
a buttoned frock-coat, Mary Neale, widow, and Ali 
Ben Mohammed Ben Abdullah, Grand Shereef and 
Prince of Tetuan, in the Sultanate of Morocco, were 
joined in wedlock; whereof Richard Neale, Member 
of the Royal College of Surgeons, and Licentiate of 
the Royal College of Physicians, and John Tomp- 
kins, laborer (and lame hanger-on of the Registrar’s 
Court in the hope of casual half crowns) duly certi- 
fied themselves as witnesses. 

Molly thus attained the first stage of her ambition ; 
she was Grand Shereefia and Princess of Tetuan: 
and it was in an apparent suffusion of happiness that 


THE GKEEN TUKBANS. 155 

she drove with her husband and Dr. Neale down to 
the river and embarked on a steam launch. That 
was Dr. Dick’s generous arrangement for conveying 
them to the wedding breakfast, which he had ordered 
at Greenwich. 

It was impossible that the ubiquitous newspaper 
reporter should miss noting so extraordinary a fact 
as the marriage of a prince at a registry office; and 
the later editions of the evening papers all contained 
the news, given with formal exactitude. On their re- 
turn in the afternoon to Westminster, Dr. Dick 
pointed out the newspaper bills, held with stones in 
the gutter, and flying from the hands of howling and 
scurrying boys : “Marriage of a Prince at a Regis- 
try.” He bought several papers, and showed Molly 
and Ali that it was truly their marriage that formed 
the tid-bit of news. Molly professed to be aston- 
ished; but she was truly flattered and triumphant: 
she delighted in publicity. 

The newly-married pair went home to spend their 
honeymoon ; and their home was Molly’s flat. 
That had been Molly’s suggestion. Since they 
would probably depart very soon to Ali’s own land, 
it was not (she declared) worth while to take a 
house, with the attendant trouble and expense : her 
flat was ready, sufficient for both. 


156 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


When she entered, she found a telegram on the 
hall table addressed to “Mrs. Neale.” She tore it 
open. It was in French, and signed De Courcel. 
In some astonishment and trepidation she withdrew 
with it to her room, leaving her husband to enter the 
drawing-room. 

“My compliments,” she read, in French'. “You 
have played check again. Next I play. Mate in 
one move. — De Courcel.” 

Plainly he used a former figure of speech, and 
obviously he alluded to her marriage. But how 
did he guess that she would return to her flat, and 
would not depart on a wedding trip ? She was dis- 
turbed — she could not deny it to herself — ^very much 
disturbed; for it was not an agreeable missive of 
congratulation to receive on the threshold of her 
new married life. 

While Molly thus considered the ominous tele- 
gram in the privacy of her own room, a scene was 
being enacted in the drawing-room which would 
have amazed her. 

When Ali went to the drawing-room, fie found 
the door held against him from within. With the 
exertion of a little of his strength, he pushed it open 
and entered. Alula fled across the room towards 
the balcony. 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


157 


^‘Thou mischievous monkey, Alula,” he said, with 
a laugh, talking in Moorish. “What meanest thou ' 
by keeping the door against me?” 

“Go away!” she cried, halting suddenly at the 
sound of his voice. “Go, go I” she stamped. “False, 
wicked man! Abominable pig! Look not upon 
me ! Speak not to me ! Thou art truly hateful, and 
I hate thee! Thou art ugly, and I loathe thee! 
Thou art base, and I spurn thee !” 

And at that she burst into tears, sank on a couch, 
and curled herself up, with her pretty head plunged 
in a cushion. 

. “Ai, ai !” cried Ali, in amazement. “But what is 
this. Alula?” 

She raised her head, with her black curls all in dis- 
order, and showed a face all pitiful and bewept. In 
a tone charged with reproach, she said : 

“Hast thou not married the Lalla Neale? Thou 
hast not told me; but the slave of the Lalla has! 
And now thou wilt live with her here in this house, 
and I must go away !” 

“Ha! is that all, little one?” said Ali. “There is 
no need for thee to go away ; and soon we shall all 
return to our own dear land together, and walk in 
our gardens of oranges and roses.” 

“But that is not all, ungrateful one!’' she cried. 


158 


THE GEEElSr TUEBANS. 


‘‘And never, never will I walk with thee in a garden 
of roses! Why, oh, why, hast thou married her? 
Dost thou think, foolish man, that she will love thee 
as I would love thee? Hath she not had one hus- 
band already? Is she not a wise woman? Doth 
she not look before and after ? Is she not a foreign 
woman, while I — even I — am of your own race, your 
own blood, your own land?’’ 

“And is not she also ?” faltered Ali. “For am not 
I of two races, and two lands ?” 

“Hast thou not many a time told me: ‘My color 
only is English ; my heart and my life are all Moor- 
ish’? See!” she cried, leaping like a flash to her 
feet, and spreading wide her arms, “am I less beau- 
tiful than she? Am I less to be desired, less to be 
loved?” 

“Nay, little one,” said he, “thou art altogether 
lovely. But thou art young. And,” he faltered, as 
if uncertain whether he should say it, “who knows 
how love comes ? It blows, as the wind blows.” 

“But I know,” said she, in a jealous flash, “how 
love for her came to thee ! Am I not a woman, and 
have I not seen? She ensnared thee with her wiles 
this way and that; and who knew better than she 
how to set them, since sHe is wise and has had expe- 
rience? She spread herself out, sidi, and thou wert 
caught like a fly in honey !” 


THE GEEEN TUEBxiNS. 


159 


‘‘Silence, child !” cried Ali, with anger and dignity. 
“ ’Tis not of a stranger thou lettest thy tongue wag, 
but of my wife !” 

“Pardon, sidi !” said Alula, crossing her hands on 
her bosom and bowing her head. “I have spoken 
foolishly. I am young, sidi,’' she added, with a 
touch of sarcasm; “but Allah be praised! I grow 
every minute older !” She turned away. “Ah, sidi, 
sidi !” she cried, while her bosom heaved and flut- 
tered with a suppressed storm of sobbing, “thou 
knowest not what I have done for thee, nor what I 
will do ! For thee I came to this land ; and for thee I 
shall leave it. Henceforward I am dumb !” 

She turned and slipped swiftly away. She must 
have heard the approach of Molly ; for, as she closed 
one door, Molly opened the other. 

That scene troubled Ali ; but, after a long medita- 
tion, he decided to say nothing about it to his wife. 
For, semi-barbarian though he was, he valued a quiet, 
domestic life; and he considered it prudent not to in- 
cur the risk of raising the demon of jealousy on his 
newly-established hearth. Moreover, Alula must 
stay with them, until the arrival of her father at least. 

Before the end of September that distinguished 
ruflian arrived, with the new title of Basha. The 
very day after his arrival — the day on which it was 


160 


THE GEEEH TUEBAHS. 


arranged that Alula would leave the flat in Victoria- 
street and go to her father’s splendid lodging in Carl- 
ton-House Terrace — Molly had such a shock as she 
had never before experienced. She was on the point 
of conducting Alula to the Basha’s abode, when the 
postman knocked and thrust through the letter-slit a 
letter. Molly picked it up. It was addressed to her 
husband; but the handwriting on the envelope — 
palpably French — roused her suspicion. Hesitation 
was but for an instant: she put the letter in her 
pocket. ■ 

When seated in the cab with Alula, she drew forth 
the letter and broke open the envelope. And then 
her fluttering suspicion rose and became a threaten- 
ing vulture; for in her hand was a small document 
written in Arabic, but plainly signed in English : 

April 24th, 189 — . — Mary Neale.” It was the 
receipt she had given to the Sid’ El Helba for five 
thousand pounds from the Treasury of the Sultan. 
It was not the original receipt — for that had been on 
parchment — but a copy on paper ! 

She readily guessed it had made by De Courcel 
from the original in the Basha’s possession; and it 
had been sent without comment to her husband. If 
she had not intercepted it! The thought sickened 
her, and made her brain reel. She folded it back 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


161 


into the envelope, and thrust it into the little handbag 
that she carried. 

But, Heavens, what were her amazement and ter- 
ror, when she returned home after leaving Alula at 
the Basha’s, to open her bag and find no letter ! 


162 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


CHAPTER XV. 

THE ARABIC DOCUMENT. 

Alula was very much interested in the house 
which the British Government had hired for the 
entertainment of her father. She had considerable 
trouble in correcting — out of her better acquaintance 
with English houses — the Basha’s barbarous precon- 
ceptions of the uses of various things. She had to 
instruct him that he should not keep his tea-tray 
under the sofa; that he must not assemble all the 
clocks of the house in the drawing-room to hear 
their combined efforts at ticking and striking (as if 
they were British workmen!) ; that he should not go 
to sleep on the hearth-rug, nor go to bed on the 
dining-room table; that he must not make a mantle 
of a handsome brocade curtain that he fancied; and 
that it was not good manners to take an agreeable 
sweetmeat from his own mouth and pop it into his 
daughter’s. 

With such correction and instruction in righteous- 


THE GKEEN^ TURBANS. 


163 


ness Alula's first day was sedulously occupied till she 
went to bed. Then she set forth her cherished pri- 
vate properties; and then she opened, among other 
things, a little handbag, of which Molly had long ago 
made her a present. She was surprised and puzzled 
to discover there a letter. She took it out and looked 
at it. Now it is a point to note that Alula’s educa- 
tion, clever girl though she was, had only commenced 
since she came to England. In her own country she 
had been merely a female, denied instruction in read- 
ing and writing, denied even the possession of a soul, 
both of which in Morocco are accounted the monopo- 
lies of the masterful male. But in England she was 
a woman, and was treated better than if she were a 
man. She could, therefore, neither read nor write 
her own language, while she had learned in a few 
months to do both with English. Thus you will see 
that, while she could make nothing of the Arabic 
characters of the paper, she easily read the address 
on the envelope: ‘^To Ali Ben Mohammed, Grand 
Shereef and Prince of Tetuan,” and the name at the 
end of the paper, '‘Mary Neale.” 

The names thus in strange conjunction set her 
thinking. How had that letter come into her bag? 
She recalled that, when she and Molly were about 
to leave the flat, a letter arrived of which Molly 


164 


THE GBEEiS^ TUEBANS. 


took possession. Was not that in her hand the 
very letter? and the same letter also which Molly 
had opened and read in the cab with much attention ? 
But evidently it had been sent to Ali. Why had 
Molly not given it to Ali at once ? Alula was quick- 
witted, and she divined that Molly did not wish her 
husband to read that letter, to which her own name 
was attached. Why? There was the mysteryi. 
And how had the letter entered into Alula’s hand- 
bag? With a leap of memory she clearly recalled 
that Molly carried a little bag similar to hers. What 
more likely than that Molly had thought she was 
putting the letter away in her own bag when she was 
thrusting it into Alula’s? If that was not the ex- 
planation of Alula’s possession of the letter, there 
was none. 

Then came the question to Alula: What should 
she do with the letter? It was not hers, yet she 
might have a concern in it. The letter was addressed 
to Ali ; therefore it was his. But Molly’s name was 
at the end of it ; therefore, in some sense, it might be 
hers too. And there was the place, “Fez,” written 
in English, and the date, “April 24th, 189 — ,” which 
was just before they had left Fez for England. She 
wondered what the letter contained, and she "wished 
she could read it. Finally, she prepared to go to 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


165 


bed without having determined what she should do 
with the letter. 

She was in the midst of her preparations when a 
knock sounded on the door. She opened it. A 
maid was there, with the extraordinary intimation 
that a lady — ‘The Princess Ali” — wished very par- 
ticularly to have a word with her. The Princess 
Ali, of course, was Molly, and instantly Alula sus- 
pected why she had come so late. She bade the 
maid conduct the Princess Ali there, and she thrust 
the letter into her bosom and was ready for her. 

Molly, when she entered, could not hide her ex- 
citement and anxiety; and, with a woman’s quick 
suspicion. Alula believed it must be for herself she 
feared. There must be something in the letter that 
she did not wish Ali to know, and Alula swiftly 
resolved what she would do. 

“Dear Alula,” said Molly, “have you found any- 
thing of mine?” 

“Anything of yours?” asked Alula. “Where?” 

“Oh,” broke out Molly, “I am in trouble. I have 
lost something. It is a letter. I read it in the cab 
when I came with you, and I thought I put it in my 
little bag afterwards. But I can’t have done that. 
I found out the cab afterwards, but the cabman 
hadn’t seen it. And I have just remembered that 


166 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


you carried a little bag like mine. I wonder if I put 
the letter in your bag instead of in my own?’' 

'There is my bag,” said Alula. 

"You have not opened it yet?” asked Molly. 

"No,” answered Alula, and thus committed herself 
to falsehood. 

Molly pounced at the bag. "May I?” said she, 
and opened it. 

It contained no letter. Molly shot a suspicious 
look at Alula, and that look killed a rising com- 
punction in Alula’s breast. Not for the world now 
would she confess that she had the letter. 

"Is the letter of value?” asked Alula. 

"To me only,” answered Molly. "It is of no 
interest or value to any other person. 

"Then why,” thought Alula again, "did she not 
let it go to Ali ? It contains something she does not 
wish him to know, and she fears for herself.” 

Molly departed with a desperate look upon her 
fair face, but Alula did not pity her. And that 
night before she slept, she made up her mind that she 
would at once set herself to learn to read her own 
language, that she might discover what that myste- 
rious letter contained. 

In the morning Alula hid the letter away until 
such time as she could read it, and so it happened 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


167 


that Molly, as the days and weeks passed without the 
terrible document turning up against her, recovered 
something of her composure and serenity. She 
could not be quite serene, for she could not forget 
that the original still existed, and that another copy 
might appear at any moment. Therefore she or- 
dained that all correspondence that came to the flat 
should be brought to her, and thus every letter to 
her husband. Prince Ali, passed through her hands. 

But that watchful life was too tense and close a 
strain to be borne long ; and Molly used all her 
influence for the speedy return of Ali to his own 
land, where the postmen cease from troubling and 
the telegraph’s at rest. She had even made up her 
mind to apply in person to the Basha El Helba — 
Alula’s father — for the Sultan’s edict of banish- 
ment to be revoked, when her agreeable plan for 
aiding her husband behind his back was made im- 
possible by events which she could not control. 

The Basha El Helba had been made a great deal 
of by the British Government and the British public 
in London. He was new, and strange, and pic- 
turesque ; and newspaper men found unending inter- 
est in his green turban (he claimed to be a descend- 
ant of the Prophet) and his white jelab, or mantle, 
in his inscrutable eyes and his Arab features. The 


168 


THE GEEEN TUEBAHS. 


inscrutability of his eyes was mere common cunning, 
and the Arabian cast of his features was of the cross- 
bred type, which gave him the look of an intelligent 
goat. Indeed, one impudent journalist went so far 
as to write that, if a certain well-known novelist were 
arrayed in haik and turban, he might easily be mis- 
taken for the Sid’ El Helba. But even such flip- 
pancies only made people look at the Basha all the 
more eagerly when he drove in an open landau 
through the streets, and made them assemble in 
greater numbers to see him enter or leave his car- 
riage, either at his temporary dwelling in Carlton- 
House Terrace or at the house of some great person 
whom he visited. Although it was not the season, 
he was overwhelmed with invitations, and after a 
visit to the country seat of the Prime Minister, he 
had the honor of being photographed in his company. 

Now there were people who could not view these 
attentions as mere points of airiosity on the part 
of the public, and of politeness and policy on the 
part of statesmen and politicians. ‘‘The Friends of 
Moorish Freedom,” having better hearts than heads, 
and stronger feelings than understandings, grew 
very angry with the reception accorded to the Basha. 

“Here,” said they, “is the cruel representative 
of an oppressive and bloodthirsty despotism, under 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


169 


which the poor Moorish people have groaned for 
ages. Why should we treat him with so much con- 
sideration, and flatter him, and generally cocker 
him up? Let us rather choose the occasion for 
showing him what we thinK of him and his Gov- 
ernment.'’ 

It was no doubt true that the Basha was all that 
they called him, and worse; but if you choose the 
occasion when you have asked a man to your house 
to tell him what you think of him, you are accounted 
a very rude person. Therefore, to call the Sid’ El 
Helba names while he was in this country, and had 
no sufficient means of answering back, was not very 
brave or pretty conduct. Yet that was what the 
foolish ‘Triends of Moorish Freedom” did. 

And they went further in their folly. The Basha 
had come to London on a commercial mission, and 
the Lord Mayor, as representing the Commerce and 
the Corporation of the City, invited the Basha to a 
banquet at the Mansion House. That appeared to 
the absurdly sentimental “Friends of Moorish 
Freedom” so great an outrage on decency that they 
immediately invented a greater. They got up a 
counter-demonstration and a counter-^banquet, to 
which they invited the Grand Shereef and Prince 
of Tetuan. 


m THE GBEEN TUHBAK^S. 

Ali of Tetiian would have been well advised if 
he had not accepted the invitation. But he did 
accept it, and the acceptance marked a new departure 
in his history. 

‘‘Why,’^ he asked Dr. Neale, who tried to dissuade 
him, “why should I consider the Sid’ El Helba, the 
servant of a son of a slave who rules my poor 
country? Has he shown himself considerate to me, 
tender to mine ? Who caused my brother and me to 
be put in the pit of serpents? El Helba! Well, 
these who ask me to go to the banquet which they 
have prepared are my good friends. They have been 
kind to me and they love my country, therefore I 
will go.” 

And he went. But he did not return. 


THE GREEH TURBANS. 


171 


CHAPTER XVI. 

ALI IS KIDNAPPED. 

The banquet to Ali was in the Savoy Hotel, and 
the faithful Dr. Dick, although he had failed to 
dissuade his cousin from attending it, accompanied 
him, to be his mouthpiece, if necessary, and, in any 
case, to do all he could to hinder too free a flow of 
opinion concerning the oppressions rampant in 
Morocco, and too generous an encouragement of 
the sacred cause of revolt. But, as the evening 
drew on. Dr. Dick found that he had imposed on 
himself a task that he could not accomplish. 

My readers must know people who pride them- 
selves on speaking out, on telling what they believe 
to be the truth always and in all circumstances, 
and they will agree with me that such persons often 
do more mischief than liars. There are mischievous 
politicians and public men of that sort who pride 
themselves on their absolute truth and honesty, but 


1?2 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


who forget that, while there may be a time to speak, 
there is also a time to keep silent. Such were these 
worthy and wordy “Friends of Moorish Freedom.” 
They were free citizens of a free country, and they 
insisted on using the utmost freedom of speech con- 
cerning the iniquities of the Government of the 
Sultan of Morocco, altogether oblivious how they 
were compromising the safety, and putting in 
jeopardy the life, of their distinguished guest. 

“It is a disgrace to civilization,” said one speaker, 
“that the Government of Great Britain should have 
any dealings with so shameful and iniquitous a 
despotism as that of Morocco, which is based on the 
extremest oppression and cruelty, on lust, slavery, 
perjury and corruption! Such a Government, which 
is no Government, is a perpetual outrage on the con- 
science of mankind, and we call upon all right- 
thinking, right-feeling persons to unite, to combine, 
to rest neither day nor night, until so detestable a 
tyranny is overthrown, and the downtrodden Moors 
raise to Heaven their faces wet with the tears of 
grateful freedom!” 

A young poet, who knew nothing about Morocco 
except what he had heard from the gentlemen 
around him, but who had a store of fine feelings 
and fine words, recited an ode, in which he called 


THE GKEEN TUEBANS. 


173 


the Sid’ El Helba an “Emissary of Hell,” and the 
Sultan of Morocco “Assassin!” and “Enemy of 
Mankind!” while he hailed Prince AH as “the 
Herald of the Coming Dawn !” 

Dr. Dick groaned in spirit as he listened to all 
that foolish stuff, which was not exactly untrue, 
but which was so exaggerated, and which would 
have been so much better left unsaid just then. As 
for Prince Ali, he only half understood the speeches 
and this ode; but he had a simple, generous soul. 
He believed these people were his friends, and he 
stood up and thanked them at the last for their 
generous sentiments and their equally generous aid. 

Thus the banquet came to an end, and the pro- 
moters of the banquet went home exceedingly well 
pleased with themselves. Dr. Dick and Prince Ali 
got their hats and overcoats, and moved together to 
the Embankment entrance of the Savoy Hotel. Dr. 
Dick was going to walk the short distance to his 
chambers in the Middle Temple, Ali was going to 
take a cab to the flat in Victoria-street. 

“I fear. Cousin Ali,” said Dick, in Moorish, when 
they had reached the pavement, “that trouble will 
come of this evening’s entertainment. But I’ll call 
in and see you to-morrow. Good night.” 

There was a bustle for cabs, and there were many 


174 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


active touts around. Two decent looking fellows 
fastened themselves to Prince Ali. 

^‘Cab, your honor? Cab, Prince? This way, sir! 
There’s one ’ere, your Royal ’Ighness.” 

Dr. Dick heard, them, and saw Ali go with them 
to a four-wheeled cab some distance back along the 
rank. He thought that all was well, and he went 
away. 

But all was not well. The two touts pushed Ali 
into the cab, where he was immediately seized by 
two pairs of stout arms, and his mouth and nostrils 
were stopped by a damp, strong-smelling clout in a 
great, rough hand, while the door was banged to, 
and the cab was rapidly driven off. A rushing sea 
of thought swept over Ali’s brain, and then a thick, 
heavy curtain fell between him and consciousness. 

When the thick veil was lifted and he returned 
to consciousness, he found he was lying on his 
back with his arms bound to his sides. A small 
jet of gas burnt some distance from him, but it 
was sufficient to show that he was in a room and 
lying upon a small bed. Was he in prison, he 
wondered? But he was strangely drowsy and 
sick, and while he wondered, the curtain came down 
again and he lost touch with surroundings. Again 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


175 


he returned to himself, and on looking around, he 
discovered that there was a window, the lower half 
of which was barred across. He staggered off the 
bed to look through it. He pressed his face against 
the bars and looked. He saw opposite to him the 
tops of buildings, with a gulf of space between. 
Plainly, then, wherever he was, he was very high 
up. 

He turned about. There was a door, but it did 
not look like a prison door; it seemed too thin and 
slight. He kicked it, and it shivered. 

“Holloa!” growled a rough voice without; and 
there sounded the flop of a heavy body. Bolts 
were shot back, the key was turned, and the door 
was opened. A heavy, brutal-looking fellow, with 
close-cropped head and thick neck, stood and stared 
at Ali. 

“Now,” said he, “what the Dickens-and- jerry-go- 
nimble d’yer mean by kicking this ’ere door? 
’Tain’t your door, is it? No; nor it ain’t your wife. 
I’ve ’eard say that you forinors could give chaps like 
me p’ints and a beating in keeping wives in order. 
Lots o’ strap and no cheek, eh, guv’nor? That’s 
about it, ain’t it? But, as I made remark afore, 
this ’ere door ain’t none o’ yourn, and what I says 
is : ‘What are ye blooming well a-doing of, eh ?” 


176 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


‘T wish to go out,” said Ali. 

‘H dessay; and don’t you wish you may get it? 
But ye can’t. See, guv’nor? There’s me and my 
mate” — indicating another bulky fellow outside- — 
“has partic’lar orders — most partic’lar orders, we 
has — to ’old you tight and keep you quiet ; and we’re 
a-goin’ to do it. Ain’t we. Bill? Now, that being 
so,” he continued, in a tone which was intended to 
convey a plausible and soothing argument, “don’t 
you think the tip for you is to lie lov/ and wait 
patient till the gaffer — the principal, as I may say — 
comes and ’as it out with you?” 

Ali understood little of all that; but he guessed 
its purport to be that he could not be let out, and 
had better endure his captivity until someone in 
authority appeared. But what would Molly think 
of his long delay in returning to her? Would she 
not be frantic with anxiety? 

“I have money,” said he. “I will give you money. 
I must go out.” 

But the bold, bad Briton was not to be bribed. 
“Inky-dinky-darborough !” he murmured, laying his 
-finger to the side of his nose, “don’t you think it’s a 
very fine day?” 

When he said that, he deliberately closed the 
door, and locked and bolted it anew. 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


177 


Prince Ali sat upon the bed and tried to consider 
his position. He was bewildered, and his senses 
were still drowsed with the anaesthetic which had 
overcome him. Moreover, he knew not where he 
was ; therefore thought and speculation seemed vain. 
He could but work round and round, and find no 
issue. 

But enlightenment came soon. He was still 
plunged in perplexity and speculation, when he heard 
new voices without. The brutal jailor with whom 
he had exchanged words opened the door, entered, 
and turned the gas up. And then, within the room, 
Ali saw a white-robed figure in a green turban. A 
second glance assured him that he looked upon the 
Sid’ El Helba! 

The Basha strode forward, while the two bullies 
remained in the background and kept the door. 
Prince Ali continued to sit on the bed and gaze at 
the Basha; and, as he gazed, an understanding of 
his desperate situation came to him, and with under- 
standing came resentment. The goat-faced Basha 
gazed and smiled, and at length spoke — spoke in the 
Moorish speech. 

‘^Thou reckless, vain, and babbling fool ! At last 
I have caught thee nicely ! Thou hast poured out all 


178 


THE GEEEH TURBANS. 


thy desire and all thy ambition to those English 
friends of thine, with whom thou dost conspire to 
overthrow — the folly of it! — the power and au- 
thority of our lord the Sultan, the Commander of 
the Faithful, whom Allah preserve! I have caught 
thee ; and I hold thee at my mercy, as a lion holds a 
silly ass !” 

“Yes,” assented Ali; “thou hast caught me by a 
poor craft, oh, mine enemy ! But thou must set me 
free again. Thou, and thy master the Sultan, have 
no power over me in this land.” 

“And who, O Shereef, will deliver thee out of my 
hands? Will thy friends who conspire with thee 
come with swords and guns to thine aid? Poor 
fools, they are but made of wind! They talk, and 
talk, but they can do nothing!” 

“Nay, Basha,” said Ali, confidently; “there is no 
need that I should ask their aid, nor the aid of 
swords and guns. The law of the English is strong 
enough. It is written therein that if thou hast 
aught against me, thou shouldst summon me to ap- 
pear before a magistrate, a kadi, and declare before 
him what thou hast against me. I will appeal to the 
English Government ; and the Government will say : 
‘Set this man free. Thou, a stranger and a guest, 
hast no right of arrest.' None but the law, not 


THE GEEElSr TUEBAHS. 


179 


even the Sultana herself, has right of arrest in this 
land. Therefore, Basha,” continued Ali, in quiet 
confidence, “it will be wise to set me free before thy 
folly is made known to the Government, and thou, a 
stranger and guest, art covered with disgrace!” 

“Dost thou take me,” cried the Basha, with a 
laugh, “for such an one as thyself, who looks not 
before, and forgets, and forgets? How shalt thou 
make known thy case to the Government of the 
English ? Canst thou call loud enough to be heard ? 
Canst thou send a letter hence?” and he swept his 
hand round the bare room, and let his gesture linger 
to indicate the two burly and brutal jailors. “No; 
thou canst do nothing. I have thee, and I keep thee — 
keep thee till my return to our own land,” he added, 
triumphantly, “and that will not be long delayed. 
Then thou goest with me, bound as a conspirator and 
traitor, and bound shalt thou be handed over to the 
tender mercies of thy outraged lord the Sultan I” 

“I am neither blind nor a fool, Basha,” said Ali, 
keeping himself well in, although bursting with re- 
sentment. “Thou, playest a bold and desperate 
game; but I warn thee, it will fail. Of that I am 
confident. A wise woman has read me my for- 


“The wise woman whom thou hast taken to 


180 THE GKEEN TURBANS. 

wife?’’ smiled the Basha. ‘H know the wisdom of 
that woman.” 

‘^No,” answered Ali, simply; ^^another — a sor- 
ceress. I shall accomplish the desire of my heart; 
and I shall be fully revenged on all my enemies. 
And of all my enemies there is but one a greater 
enemy than thou, Basha. And I will tell thee why, 
Basha, when Allah has put thy life into my hands.” 

In saying that, he rose and looked the Sid’ El 
Helba in the face; and the Basha was obviously 
shaken by his proud confidence. He turned pale 
for an instant, and his eyes wav-ered to and fro. 

“And did the witch,” asked the Basha, “reveal to 
thee who all thy enemies were?” 

“She revealed to me,” answered Ali, “more than 
I have told thee.” 

That brought the Sid’ El Helba’s gaze back to 
the Prince’s face ; but he read nothing there. 

“Allah,” continued the Prince, solemnly, “holds 
the lives of all men in His hands, and He rules the 
world as He will; but He forgets not to bring 
punishment at the last to the oppressor, the betrayer, 
and the assassin. I live confident in the faith that 
Allah holds my life in reserve for an instrument of 
punishment.” 

He turned away, lay down upon the bed with his 


THE GKEEX TUEBAKS. 


181 


back to the Basha, and said no more. And in a sec- 
ond or two the Sid’ El Helba withdrew. 

Now that Ali knew how he was situated, he was 
calm. He had the Moslem’s faith, the Moslem’s 
fatalism. He accepted what was inevitable for the 
time, and, since he saw no hope of release that night, 
he composed himself to sleep. He had slept he 
knew not how long, when he was waked, not by 
any sound that he knew of, but by a bright light in 
the room. He looked, and thought he must be 
dreaming. He had read the story of Peter the 
Apostle being wonderfully released from prison 
by an angel: there stood the angel before him all 
in white. He had also heard the story of Abou Ben 
Adhem, who ^'saw within the moonlight in his 
room, making it bright and like a lily in bloom, an 
angel” : there was the angel, “like a lily in bloom.” 

“Hush!” said a voice that he knew. “Rise, and 
come !” 

And then he knew the angel for Alula, the 
daughter of the Sid’ El Helba, with a candle in her 
hand. And, in wondering silence, he rose from his 
bed, as quickly as he could with his arms bound. 
With a soft murmur of pity she noted his bonds. But 
she carried a dagger, and with it she cut the rope 
that bound him. Then, with her finger on her lip, 


182 


THE GREEN" TITRBAKS. 


she led the way out. He glanced around, and saw 
his two guards heavily asleep on a pair of mats. So 
close was one of them to the' door that Alula and 
Ali had to step over him to pass out. 

She bolted the door, and locked it, and thrust the 
key into the bosom of the nearest guard. And then 
she led the way swiftly down the stairs. 


.THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


183 


CHAPTER XVII. 

THE BEARDED LADY. 

Alula led and Ali followed down two flights of 
stairs, but no farther. She then passed swiftly 
along a landing and opened a door. Ali hesitated. 

"‘But, Lalla Alula,” he whispered, “am I not to 
go down into the street, and go home to my own 
house ?” 

“You mean to your wife’s abode in the street of 
Victoria, sidi?” said Alula. “No, sidi. It is not 
possible at this hour. It is necessary that you 
accept my poor hospitality until the morning, at 
least. Haste! We may be seen.” 

She indicated the open door, and Ali passed in. 
He looked around him. He was in a sitting-room, 
and Alula’s maid was there in waiting. 

“Thou art in my part of my father’s house,” said 
Alula, in answer to Ali’s looks of surprise and doubt. 
“Have no fear of being found. Neither my father, 
nor any of the slaves of the house, nor anyone save 
rnyself and this maid of mine, ever enters these 


184 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


rooms. And now, if it please you, sidi, before you 
sleep we will talk.’’ 

“It will please me well, Alula,” said he. 

Yet he seemed troubled and anxious, for it was 
natural that, set thus midway between captivity and 
freedom, he should feel himself to be in a doubtful 
and equivocal situation. 

“Ah, sidi!” broke out Alula, noting his troubled 
looks, “you know not how I would rather die than 
that a hair of your head should be touched.” 

He caught her impassioned gaze, and he noted 
her little hands clasped in her white lap. 

“Dear Lalla,” said he, “there is surely no ques- 
tion of dying?” 

“Ah, sidi !” she cried again, “you look at me and 
you think of an English maiden. I wear the dress 
of an English maiden ; but thou shouldst know well 
that only the dress is English. I am of thine own 
people, of thine own hot blood. My heart, like 
thine, sidi, is a smouldering fire!” He gave her a 
quick glance. “Do I not know thee?” she de- 
manded. “Is not thy heart a fire trodden down? 
Have I not seen it blaze? Did I not see thee with 
thy brother in the pit of serpents and before? 
Allah, how beautiful ye were both!” 

“Fair Lalla,” said he, quietly, “we will not speak 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


185 


of that time nor of my brother; it will unman me. 
Let us speak of now and of what is to be done. I 
have been brought hither violently and illegally by 
thy father. He has outraged the law and the Gov- 
ernment of the English, and he must answer for 
what he has done.” 

‘‘Sidi,” said Alula, “my father knows full well 
what he has done. But he will run great risks to 
gain his purpose, and that is to commend himself 
to the high favor of the Sultan by bringing thee 
triumphantly out of the shadow of English protec- 
tion, and handing thee over to the Sultan’s own 
power. For knowest thou not that thou art now 
reported to be an obdurate and reckless rebel con- 
spiring with certain English people to proclaim 
thine own greatness and to seize the Sultan’s 
throne ?” 

“I am guilty of no such folly. All I seek is to 
fulfill my brother’s desire for the good of his 
people, and to bring punishment on his murderers.” 

“But my father does not believe that, and thy 
friends among the English do not talk like that; 
and, remember, thou art held responsible for all 
their foolish talk.” 

“Well,” said Ali, “it is well. That I must 
endure.” 


186 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


‘‘But hast thou considered, sidi ?” said Alula. 
“It is in thy thought, I know, that thou wilt 
return soon to our own land. But how, and how 
soon? Listen, sidi. Thou art released from my 
father’s hold; but he is roused like a lion that has 
mouthed and yet has lost his prey. He will go to 
the English Government and tell his tale of the 
treasons thou dost hatch in this country, and the 
English Government, to be rid of the trouble, will 
command thee to leave this land at once. What 
then? Thou must hasten away publicly in one of 
their ships, and publicly thou wilt reach our own 
land, where the Sultan’s people will be ready to lay 
hold of thee and carry thee to Fez or Marakesh into 
the clutches of him who will never let thee go.” 

“Thy words,” said he, considering her with 
admiration, “are the words of a wise man and -not 
of a young maiden.” 

She blushed with pleasure and continued: “I 
have a plan, sidi. My father has been bargaining 
to buy a ship that he might carry thee off in his 
own way, bound and in ignominy; but he haggles 
and will not give the price that is asked, and the 
ship is not yet bought. Now, go thou, sidi, at once 
and give the men that sell what they seek for the 
ship, and then sail away unknown to any and with- 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


187 


out a word of leave-taking. Thou canst sail in 
the ship to what part of our own land thou wilt, 
and go on shore in secret and in safety, and so 
home to thine own castle and thine own people.” 

“Thy counsel is good, fair Alula,” said the 
Prince, with excitement, “and I pray that I may 
kiss the hand of the counsellor.” He did so, and 
then added: “To-morrow, when I go forth from 
here, I will do that very thing, when the Lalla 
Alula has told me where the ship is to be found.” 

Thereafter the Lalla Alula withdrew with her 
maid, and Ali was left to pass the rest of the night 
in her sitting-room. 

In the chill October dawn they were all three 
afoot again. The maid was sent downstairs to 
spy if the way of flight was clear. She returned 
with alarm on her face. The Frenchman, De 
Courcel, was marching up and down the hall impa- 
tiently awaiting his coffee and roll. He was acting 
as one of the Basha’s secretaries, but he did not live 
in the house. But having returned late with the 
Basha from the Mansion House Banquet, he had 
spent that night in the house; and being an early 
riser (like most Frenchmen), he was there by ill- 
luck to hinder the escape from the house of the 
Basha's prisoner. Ali was compelled to wait until 
the obstacle of his flight should remove himself. 


188 


THE GEEEH TUEBAHS. 


Ere that relief came, however, there arose such 
a hubbub upstairs as declared only too plainly that 
the escape of the prisoner must have been dis- 
covered. In spite of the danger to himself then, 
Ali^s concern was for his deliverer. 

'T will stay here no longer,” he declared. *Tf 
I am found in thy rooms. Alula, thou wilt be for- 
ever disgraced — by thy father and all !” 

‘Tear not,” said she. “They will not seek thee 
here.” 

“It is for thee I fear,” said he. “And I will not 
stay. May I not wear some clothes of thy maid 
and escape as a woman?” 

He urged his point, and Alula yielded. The 
maid was tall, and a skirt, and cloak, and hat of 
hers — with a heavy black veil — made in Ali’s view 
a sufficient disguise. Notwithstanding the danger, 
the maid could not contain her laughter as she 
helped to array the Prince in her own garments. 

“Wait,” pleaded Alula, ‘until all have passed 
upstairs to see what is the matter.” 

“Not a second longer, my Lalla,” said Ali. 

He kissed her hand, urged the maid to haste — 
for she was to show him out of the house — and 
followed her to the stairs. The maid tripped down 
them; he took them three at a time, so that he 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


189 


reached the entrance-hall considerably in advance 
of her. He laid hands on the hall-door, but he 
could not undo it. And while he lingered, forth 
came the Frenchman from the dining-room with 
two of the Basha’s Moorish staff, to know what 
die hubbub above-stairs - was about. De Courcel 
was about to bound upstairs when he caught sight 
of the veiled woman. He paused and eyed her 
curiously, and the maid now arrived to let her 
out. 

‘Well, good-morning, Mrs. Brown,’' said the 
self-possessed and smiling British maid as she held 
open the door. There was no danger in all this for 
her. 

“Good-morning,” mumbled the strange Mrs. 
Brown, striding down the steps. 

De Courcel shot a swift glance after her. The 
maid at once closed the door and stood a moment 
looking at him. 

“My dear,” said he, lightly tapping her hand with 
his forefinger as he spoke, “I think Mrs. Brown 
has a beard !” 

“And ii she has,” responded the pert maid, “it’s 
not your beard, sir, I suppose?” 

“All right, my dear,” said he. 

When he heard presently of the escape of the 


190 


THE GEEEN TUEBAHS. 


Basha’s prisoner, he had no doubt who Mrs. Brown 
was. And later, when he found that the two 
ruffians on duty at Prince Ali’s door had gone 
soundly to sleep the night before after drinking a 
can of beer brought to them by a maid, he made 
certain that Ali had been then released, and must 
have passed the rest of the night in Alula’s private 
quarters. But he said not a word to the Basha. 
He only grinned in solitude and rubbed his hands 
over and over to think of the use he might make 
of his knowledge elsewhere. The opportunity came 
sooner than he had anticipated. 

As Alula had foretold, the Basha, when he knew 
his prisoner was gone, became like an old lion that 
has mouthed a quarry and lost it. He raged up and 
down in futile fury, and filled the house with terror. 
He was thus raging to and fro in the drawing-room, 
while his two Moorish secretaries squatted on rugs 
mute and terrified, when De Courcel came and an- 
nounced, to him that the Princess Ali desired an 
audience. 

“Let her enter,” he cried, waving his hand and 
standing in the middle of the room. 

Molly entered, looking troubled but resolute. 

“What seekest thou?” demanded the old bar- 
barian. “A price for the surrender of thy lord ?” 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


191 


Molly turned pale, lividly pale, as if she had been 
slapped in the face. Her eyes flashed, but she con- 
tained herself. 

“I seek my husband,’’ she answered, firmly. ‘T 
fear that evil may have befallen him, and I come 
to the representative of the Sultan to inquire if he 
knows aught of Prince Ali of Tetuan.” 

“Hear the woman!” he exclaimed, rolling his 
eyes round upon his secretaries. “Am I the keeper 
of Prince Ali of Tetuan? Would I were! He 
would now be secure!” And he thrust out his 
hands, grasped an imaginary body, and shook it 
with hearty violence. “But thou art his keeper!” 
he cried, suddenly. “And this I tell thee, woman: 
that I go this very day to the keeper of your 
Sultana’s foreign keys to demand the arrest for me 
of Ali of Tetuan.” 

“Thinkest thou, Basha,” she asked, with a smile, 
“that the Foreign Minister will arrest Ali and sur- 
render him to thee ? He will talk to thee pleasantly, 
but he will not arrest or surrender him. He dare 
not ; the law of this land forbids him.” 

“He must! He shall! By the beard of the 
Prophet he shall!” yelled the Basha, swinging his 
arms and beating hiis hands together. “Ali of 
Tetuan is proved to be planning desperate treasons 


192 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


against my lord and master, the Sultan of the 
Moors, the Commander of the Faith fu(l, whom 
Allah preserve! And if he is not surrendered to 
me, then I tear up all my business with the Govern- 
ment of the English, I shake the dust of this land 
off my feet, and I return straightway to my own 
land, and cause such a slaughter and destruction of 
the English in Morocco as will make this Govern- 
ment tremble!” 

“That might cost you dear!” said Molly to her- 
self; but she looked serious and was silent, because 
the eye of De Courcel was on her. 

The Basha turned his back; and Molly under- 
stood her audience was at an end. As he heard 
her withdraw, he swung about again. 

“Ali of Tetuan is worth half the price of his 
brother!” he cried. “Wilt thou. earn th€ price?” 

“Beast !” hissed Molly, through her clenched 
teeth. But she did not turn. Rage boiled in her 
heart; but she could answer nothing — had she not 
earned the insult? 

She scarce noted that De Courcel ushered her out 
of the Basha’s presence, until, when the door was 
closed, he passed swiftly to another door which he 
opened, inviting her to enter. 

“If Madame la Princesse” said he, “will have the 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


193 


goodness, I desire a word with her — for her advan- 
tage. It is about her husband,” he added, when 
she stood in hesitation. Then she walked in at the 
open door, and he closed it. 

“Well?” said she, with dislike and defiance in 
tone and feature. 

“Your husband, the Prince, madame — but you 
will promise to keep to yourself what I say?” 

“I promise,” said she, hastily. “Go on.” 

“Your husband, the Prince, madame, was cap- 
tured last night by agents of the Basha on his leav- 
ing the banquet at the Savoy, and was brought 
here and locked up, to be carried off to Morocco 
presently.” 

“Then he is in this house?” 

“He was, madame, but he escaped from it this 
morning. That is why his Excellency the Basha 
is so enraged.” 

“Where, then, is he? I have not seen him.” 

De Courcel shrugged a shoulder. “I know not; 
but I think it possible he may be with his friend, 
the doctor. For he is truly in great danger with 
the Basha and with the English Government: the 
Basha may take him again, and the Government 
will certainly tell him to go away at once. If he 
goes away publicly, then it is as if he walked into 


194 THE GREEN TURBANS. 

the lion’s mouth. His friends — ‘The Friends of 
Moorish Freedom’ — ^have much money. Can they 
better expend it than in hiring a private ship — a 
yacht — to take him secretly back to his own land?” 

“Why, may I ask, sir, have you given yourself 
the trouble to tell me these things ?” 

“Madame!” said De Courcel, in a voice of re- 
proach, “do I not continue, in spite of all, to adore 
the most beautiful woman in the world?” 

She looked at him, but she said nothing. 

“There is one thing more, madame, which I had 
almost forgotten,” said he; and he went very near 
to her in saying it. “The person who contrived 
the release of the Prince was the girl Alula. She 
released him last night : he left the house this morn- 
ing as a veiled lady. He spent the interval in the 
apartments of Alula.” 

Molly’s eyes flashed. She was exasperated be- 
yond bearing. The Frenchman’s face was bending 
near her. She slapped it with a force which stung 
her own fingers, found the handle of the door, and 
walked out. 


JTHE GKEEN TUKBANS. 


195 


CHAPTER XVIIL 

DE COURCEL AGAIN. 

On leaving the Basha’s house, Molly took a cab 
to Dr. Neale’s chambers in the Temple. As De 
Courcel had suspected, she found Prince Ali there, 
but not the doctor; he was gone to inform her of 
Ali’s safety. At sight of her husband, Molly was 
overcome. She threw herself into his arms, and 
gave way to a wild fit of sobbing and endearment; 
for Molly had discovered that she passionately 
loved the man she had married, and through that 
discovery she was beginning to experience punish- 
ment for her past. 

‘'Oh, my dear, my dear!” she cried, between the 
sobs. “Oh, thank God you are safe — safe — safe! 
But you must not stay in this country any longer! 
We must go away — away 1” 

He caressed and sought to soothe her. “Yes, 
dear one,” he said, “I know. We will go away to 
my own dear land of sunshine, and fulfill the destiny 


196 THE GREEH TURBAHS. 

which Allah has written down for us in His book 
of life.’’ She shivered. “Tremble not, dear one,” 
he went on. “We will prepare to go at once.” 

Then he sat down with her and told her all that 
had happened, and all that Alula had said about 
her father’s plans; he omitted to say he had been 
taken after his release to Alula’s apartments — for 
why should he run the risk of misunderstanding 
and jealousy? He merely said he had spent the 
night in “another part of the house.” And Molly 
had the good sense and generosity neither to ques- 
tion nor to suspect him. She told of her own visit 
to the Basha, but said nothing of her interview with 
. De Courcel ; and she proposed application to “The 
Friends of Moorish Freedom” (thinking it a wise 
step) without declaring who had suggested it. 

When the doctor returned, the whole matter was 
discussed with him. He agreed with the suggestion 
of a private yacht, and agreed also with the sugges- 
tion of appeal to the committee of “The Friends of 
Moorish Freedom.” 

“But,” said he, “I think that we should only bor- 
row the money of them for hiring and fitting the 
yacht; Ali will repay it when he can lay hand on 
the revenues owing to him.” 

“Certainly,” said both Ali and his wife. 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


197 


‘‘Then/’ said the doctor, with alacrity, “Fll set 
about the business at once. And Ali had better 
stay here and not go out; this place is better 
guarded and is more difficult to get at than your 
flat.” 

The doctor went to the secretary of “The Friends 
of Moorish Freedom,” and it was an odd coinci- 
dence — as the secretary told him — that a steam 
yacht had already been offered for sale or hire: a 
Frenchman had come to the office, saying he had 
heard privately that they might need a boat for 
some secret service. It was another coincidence 
— but one which did not catch the attention of the 
doctor, because he did not know it — that the yacht 
bore the same name as the one vffiich Alula said her 
father had been haggling over. 

When Molly, however, knew of the coincidences, 
and added to them her own — the mention of a 
private yacht by De Courcel also — she was troubled. 
The coincidences were undeniably ominous ; but 
they were explained away in an altogether unex- 
pected fashion. 

Ali had been in hiding with a friend of Dr. 
Neale’s in another part of the Temple; and it had 
been settled between Molly and her husband and 
the doctor, that in case her movements should be 


198 


THE GREEH TURBANS. 


watched, she should cease to visit him until all was 
ready for the final removal. Therefore, she sat in 
her elegant drawing-room after dinner, alone and 
sad, troubled but resolute. She was wondering 
whether she might not as well go to bed, when 
the maid opened the door and announced a visitor. 

‘‘Captain De Courcel!’’ said she. 

Molly bounded to her feet. “You!’' she ex- 
claimed, facing him where he stood, bowing low, in 
the middle of the room. 

“Yes, madame,” said he; “it is I. You permit 
yourself to be surprised that I come, after you lay 
hand on me unkindly. But, madame, I bear no 
malice; and I assure you, upon my soul and con- 
science, that I wish to serve you and your husband.” 

She stood silent, and looked at him. She won- 
dered what could be the purpose of that bold and 
subtle schemer in visiting her thus — especially after 
her treatment of him in the morning. He must 
know, or at least guess, that her husband was not 
there. He noted the play of thought upon her 
countenance. 

“You permit me to sit down?” he asked. 

“Sit down,” said she. 

And they sat. 

“I have decided,” said he, “that I will come to 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


199 


you in confidence, pure and simple.’’ She smiled 
with incredulity. ‘*But, yes!” he asseverated. 
cannot forget that I have adored you! Mon Dieu, 
what adoration !” 

“I think, sir,” said Molly, “you had better leave 
your adoration out of account, and tell me what 
you want of me. You want something, of course.” 

“Why, madame,” he asked, in reproach, “do you 
always think me mercenary? Madame is now the 
wife of Ali, the Prince of Tetuan; but she will lie 
upon a bed of thorns if his safety and his position 
are not made secure ; and, I assure you most 
solemnly, madame — upon my soul and conscience! 
— I who know all the Basha El Helba’s plans, that 
your husband’s life and position are not worth a sou 
— if he does not become French, if he does not put 
himself under the protection of France!” 

Molly understood enough of the condition of 
Morocco to take that statement seriously. And it 
is necessary that my readers should carefully note 
what I am about to set down, in order that they, 
also, may completely comprehend the progress of 
events. For many years Morocco, like Turkey, has 
been kept from going to pieces only by the watchful 
rivalries of the Powers of Europe — of England, 
France, Spain, and Italy, in particular. England 


200 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


does not wish to possess Morocco — her hands are 
full of possessions already — but she cannot afford 
to see another, and a probably hostile, European 
Power take it, because Morocco commands the 
entrance to the Mediterranean, and a strong* Power 
installed there could cancel the value of Gibraltar 
and shut the Mediterranean up. Look at a map, 
and you will see how true that is. France, on the 
other hand, has long been determined to add 
Morocco to her other North African dominions; 
but she dare not seize it openly, because she would 
be at once opposed by the other Powers. To gain 
her purpose, therefore, she steadily works by all 
manner of subtle and underhand means; and she is 
well placed for bringing these to bear, by possessing 
the Colony of Algeria, which is next door to Mo- 
rocco. One of the means which she constantly works 
is the enrolling of Moorish subjects as proteges, 
‘^protected’’ by France. The Government of the 
Moors is so bad that there is little security for 
life or property; and therefore, whenever a 
Moor makes money, he either hides it or becomes a 
‘^protected’' subject of a European Power — of 
France, by preference, because she is always touting 
for subjects. Thus, France appears to the intelligent 
native to be the strongest and most active of all the 


THE GEEEN’ TURBANS. 


201 


Powers; and she believes that, when the crumbling 
Moorish power is finally pushed over into the dust, 
she can march in from Algeria, and be in a position 
of great advantage by the aid of those whom she has 
‘"protected.” 

These things Molly understood pretty well, and 
she seriously pondered what the Frenchman said. 

‘T know,” said she, “that the situation of Prince 
All is very dangerous; but, if the worst comes, it 
is only natural that he should seek the protection of 
England, since he is half-English.” 

“The protection of England!” cried the French- 
man. “Madame, you have been Avith the Moors, 
and you should know that England will not put 
her protection over him. If he seek her protection, 
she will say: ‘No. Be a good boy; keep your alle- 
giance to the Sultan, and help, with your great in- 
fluence, to prop up his throne against the insidious 
attacks of La Belle France !’ That ‘is what England 
would say to him; and then he would find himself 
in the claws of the Sultan, stripped of all — of money, 
estates, influence, life! Me, I say h, because me, I 
know it ! I have all the plans of the Basha and the 
Sultan at the end of my fingers !” 

Molly was impressed. She was filled with alarm 
and doubt. 


202 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


''But/' said she, "there are 'The Friends of Moor- 
ish Freedom!' " 

"Pif!" said he. "Of their own selves they will 
do nothing but talk and talk I They will preach the 
Rights of Man to the Government of Morocco — 
and that is all. Better to preach to wild beasts! 
The Sultan and his Ministers, and all the Moors in 
Morocco, know not any right of man, except to 
get as much as he can of whatever he wants ! And 
me, I know not any other right of man ! But I am 
a patriot, and I wish to get for La Belle France what 
I can. I wish to get the Grand Shereef and Prince 
of Tetuan for France. I wish it for the good motive. 
Under the protection of France, the Prince will be 
safe and strong; and France will have an illustrious 
subject. You understand, madame?" 

"It would be better, would it not," said Molly, 
"to make those representations to Prince Ali him- 
self?" 

"I have made them,” said he; "and he saw how 
just and advantageous they were — until he came 
under the influence of madame. Now 

"I understand," said she. "You wish me to 
persuade him to become a subject of France?" 

"Madame rightly divines my desire." 

"I am not yet convinced that it would not be better 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


203 


for him to seek the protection of England; and I 
think that if it were properly asked for, it would be 
truly given.” 

“Madame,” said he, “in confidence, why should I 
not trust you entirely? I tell you another thing 
to show you how ready I am, how ready France is, 
to help your illustrious husband. It is I who have 
secretly caused offer to be made of the yacht to The 
Friends of Moorish Freedom,’ that the Prince may 
escape immediately. Me, I have done that; for the 
yacht was in my hands !” 

“That,” said she, “may be a doubtful recommen- 
dation of the yacht.” 

“Madame,” said he, more urgently and earnestly, 
“let us not recriminate. I will do more still.” He 
dived his hand into his inner pocket. “See you 
that, madame?” said he, displaying a small parch- 
ment inscribed with Arabic characters. 

She could not help eagerly leaning forward and 
gazing. She recognized her own signature, “Mary 
Neale.” She turned deathly pale, and heaved a 
great sigh. 

“Dear madame,” said De Courcel, earnestly, “all 
the past shall be forgotten — blotted, wiped out — and 
this shall disappear in the flames of that fire if you 
will promise to prevail on Prince Ali to give his 
hand to France I” 


204 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


She gazed at him, and gazed at the parchment. 
He made no allusion to the copy which had been 
addressed to Prince Ali, and which he did not know 
but that the Prince had received; and Molly made 
no allusion to it, for she believed it was irretrievably 
lost. She opened her mouth to speak, and he moved 
towards the fire, with the parchment displayed, to 
encourage her — when they heard the door open. 
They both turned — and there, before them, stood 
Prince Ali! 


THE GKEEN TUKBAHS. 


205 


CHAPTER XIX. 

ARMS AND AMMUNITION. 

Molly closed her eyes for a second as if her head 
swam. But there was no time for fainting or hesi- 
tation ; the situation must be dealt with at once. 

^Ts it you, my dear?” she cried, starting to her 
feet, and stepping eagerly towards her husband. 

As she rose she cast a swift glance upon De 
Courcel. The Frenchman, doubtless, took that for 
an acceptance of his proposals. While she greeted 
her husband, he turned and went without hurry to 
the fire and laid the parchment — at any rate, a parch- 
ment — on the glowing coals. Ali saw that done 
with an eye that takes in an act without considering 
it. Molly turned and led him forward, her arm in 
his. She also then saw the parchment curl and break 
into flame, and then, with relief at her heart, she 
spoke. 

‘'Captain De Courcel,” said she, “has come to tell 
me that he saw you escape this morning as a veiled 


206 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


lady. He thought I might not know, and,’' she 
added, with a plausible touch of doubt, ^lie wishes 
me to believe that he is your friend.” 

^‘But yes, my Prince,” said the Frenchman, 
promptly, in English. ‘‘And I have just shown to 
madame a note from the Ambassador of France in 
London” — pointing to the fire — “in which he de- 
clares that he sees no safety for you, my Prince, save 
in the protection of France.” It was unfortunate for 
his statement that the burnt parchment rose up trans- 
parent on the glow of the fire and showed plainly 
that it was not written in European characters. “You 
know, my Prince,” continued De Courcel, “that, 
although I serve the Basha El Helba, my heart is for 
France. I have always said so.” 

“Yes,” assented Prince Ali, “you have said so. 
But I need no protection save the hand of Allah.” 

He turned again to Molly, and De Courcel, who 
was quite aware of the proprieties of social inter- 
course, felt that he was dismissed. 

Adieu, mon Prince,^* said he. “We may soon 
meet again in your own land. Adieu, Princesse,” he 
added, giving Molly a quick glance which plainly 
signified “Remember!” 

The Prince politely conducted him to the door. 
When he returned there was no trace of the flimsy, 


THE GKEEN TUKBANS. 


207 


transparent ash of the parchment. But Ali did not 
seem to note that. He clasped his wife close in his 
arms. 

‘‘Dearest one/’ he broke out, “I have come to you 
because by to-morrow’s dawn we must be on the 
ship.” 

“So very soon?” said she. In swift thought she 
considered that, by immediate flight, her husband 
would escape trouble both with the Basha and with 
the British Government, and she herself would be 
rid of the very doubtful attentions of the Frenchman. 
Not for a moment did she suspect then that the de- 
parture of the Prince was being hastened by De 
Courcel himself. She answered with alacrity: “I 
must get ready, then. I must go and pack at once.” 

“The doctor also packs,” said the -Prince. “He 
goes with us.” 

Molly welcomed that announcement, for she both 
liked and trusted Dr. Dick. 

Molly was an experienced traveller and an expert 
packer. She did not need to hesitate over what she 
should take with her, and what she should leave be- 
hind. She took a great deal, but she also was com- 
pelled to leave much, of which she put her confi- 
dential maid in charge, until that could be undertaken 
by her solicitor, to whom she wrote a letter. She 


208 


THE GEEEH TURBANS. 


wrote to her banker also, for Molly had still a con- 
siderable sum lying at interest, desiring him to send 
her a letter of credit to Gibraltar. 

She did not go to bed all that night, and by five 
in the morning she was ready. Prince Ali, when he 
saw the array of trunks and cases, admired and 
praised her expedition. Cabs were sent for (one 
cab could never have carried all the baggage), hot 
coffee was drunk, and long before six they were out 
in the chill October air. Molly stopped at the first 
pillar-box to post her letters with her own hand, 
then they drove on to the Embankment gate of the 
Middle Temple, where Dr. Dick was waiting to meet 
them. At the Temple Stairs on the river there was 
an electric launch ready. In a little while they were 
shooting, they and all their baggage, with the ebb- 
tide down to London Bridge. They passed beyond 
the bridge, and drew alongside a steam yacht of con- 
siderable size, but of slim and elegant proportions. 
On one of the life-buoys which hung over the bul- 
warks Ali read “The Star of the South. It was the 
name mentioned to him by Alula, the name of the 
yacht for which her father had been bargaining. 

When the red October sun rose over the scummy, 
oleaginous waters of the Thames, the Star of the 
South was voyaging swiftly towards the face of the 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 

morning, in the company of vessels both larger and 
smaller than herself, outward-bound with the tide. 
Then the three travellers slackened their care and 
prepared to go to their cabins to sleep. At that mo- 
ment Dr. Dick laid a detaining hand on Ali and gave 
him a letter. 

'Tt came for you last night,” said he. 

Ali looked at the superscription in wonder. It 
was written in the round, elementary hand of a young 
schoolgirl, a girlish hand with much of a boy’s ful- 
ness and force. He opened it and read : 

‘T wish I could write to you in our own language. 
But I cannot yet, so I write this English. May AllaK 
keep you safe till you reach our own dear land, and 
also keep you safe there ! I am very sad. My father 
is still breathing out threatenings of death to you; 
but I know I shall see you again. — Alula.” 

He considered the words for some moments, 
glanced after Molly who had gone down the cabin 
stairs, and then crumpled up the letter to throw it 
overboard. He repented of that, however, smoothed 
it out, folded it, and put it in his pocket. 

The doctor did not sleep long. He loved the sea. 
He was a good sailor, and by eleven o’clock he pre- 


210 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


pared to take a look around the ship which had been 
so quickly got ready for Ali’s need. He opened the 
lockers in his cabin, and was somewhat surprised 
to find them filled with packets of cartridges. He 
made a thorough examination of the cabin, and in 
the long lockers under the two seats he found rifles 
packed. Surprise changed to suspicion. He visited 
the saloon. In the lockers there, under the uphol- 
stered divans, more rifles. Suspicion grew. He 
went to the skipper, who was English, as were all 
the crew. He inquired of the skipper the meaning of 
what he had seen. 

‘'Oh, yes,” said the skipper, “that’s some of them. 
There’s more in the hold, cases of rifles and ammuni- 
tion both. Dry goods, we call ’em in the invoice. 
You don’t mean to say, sir, you didn’t know?” he 
exclaimed, on noting the doctor’s look of amazement. 
“They came aboard last night for your party. 
Mossoo Demange, he’s the steward and purser, he 
brought ’em.” 

M. Demange, steward and purser, was summoned. 
He was evidently a Frenchman. Oh, yes, it was 
quite right, he said. The society — “The Friends of 
Moorish Freedom” — ^had sent them for the Prince. 
Did not mister the doctor know? The doctor re- 
membered hearing from the secretary of the society 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 211 

that it was a Frenchman who had called to make 
offer of the yacht. 

“Are you,” he demanded, “the person who went 
to the office of the society and offered this yacht for 
sale or hire?” 

The Frenchman seemed a little put out. He 
shrugged a shoulder and spread out a hand. 

“Answer me,” said mister the doctor. 

“But, yes,” said Demange, “I am the man.” 

“And you know that the Basha El Helba was also 
in treaty for it ?” 

“But, yes, sir,” said Demange. “It is true.” 

“Who was in treaty on behalf of the Basha ?” de- 
manded the doctor. 

“Ah, but, certainly mister the doctor knows him. 
It was Captain De Courcel,” 

Then a new suspicion flashed upon the doctor. 

“It was Captain De Courcel who sent you to the 
society ?” 

“Mister the doctor is right,” reluctantly assented 
the man. 

Thereupon leaped up another suspicion. “Captain 
De Courcel also sent these cases of rifles and ammuni- 
tion on board?” 

“Mister the doctor,” said the man, sulkily, “has a 
corkscrew for a tongue. He has opened the bottle 


212 


THE GEEEH TUEBAHS. 


and well-nigh emptied it; he may as well have the 
dregs. The rifles and ammunition were first bought 
for the Basha; they are now for the Prince Ali. 
Wherefore? I do not know. It is not my affair.’' 

But the doctor thought he knew. And he was all 
the more troubled that it seemed plain that De 
Courcel, in leaving a stupid person like Demange on 
board, did not care who knew, once Ali was on the 
way to Morocco in company with that dangerous and 
compromising cargo. 

He laid his discovery and suspicions before the 
Prince and Princess Ali as soon as they appeared. 

“It is very evident,” said he, “that De Courcel 
hopes either one or other of two things : either that 
you will be discovered landing arms and ammunition 
in Morocco, and so of provoking rebellion and civil 
war, or that the Basha may be able to accuse you of 
stealing these things from him — that is to say, from 
the Sultan and Government of Morocco. But why 
does he take all this trouble? What is really his 
game, I wonder ?” 

“I know,” said Molly. “He wishes to push Ali 
into the arms of France. He said as much to me — 
he said as much to us both — last night.” 

Ali assented to that view. The doctor then sug- 
gested that the simplest way of being rid of the diffi- 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


213 


culty would be to heave both guns and ammunition 
overboard. But Ali — having strong in him the love 
of weapons, and the delight of possessing them, 
which mark all semi-barbarians — would not hear of 
such scandalous waste. 

‘Well,'’ said the doctor, “we shall have trouble 
yet.’’ 

Ali pointed out that they were voyaging in secret, 
and there was very little likelihood of being discov- 
ered landing at the lonely spot they were making for. 
Still the doctor shook his head, and declared he did 
not like it. But no more was said. 

They had good weather, and they made a quick 
run south. On the fifth day they were in the 
Straits of Gibraltar ; and Ali was stirred to an 
extraordinary pitch of excitement to see again the 
towering mountains of his native land, flushed with 
the beauty of a rosy dawn. They avoided the 
fortress of Gibraltar, and kept away to starboard to 
hug the African shore. They became wary, and 
hung tarpaulins over the bows, and a flag over the 
stern to hide the name of the ship. They passed 
the Spanish town and fortress of Ceuta in the early 
morning, and kept to the southeast. 

Their intention was to land some seventy miles 
along that curving, iron-bound coast, at a sheltered 


214 


THE GREEX TURBAN'S. 


spot between the Fishers’ Isles and the shore, and 
some distance to the west of the Spanish convict 
settlement of Pehon de Velez. They were steaming 
in when a big ship stood out from behind one of the 
islets, with the evident intention of driving them in. 

Glasses were brought to bear ; and then it was plain 
that the agents of the Moorish Government were on 
the look-out for them. The vessel was a warship 
— the Sid’-El-Turki — one of the two ships of war 
which compose the modern Moorish navy, and they 
stood away out to sea again to escape her. 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


215 


CHAPTER XX. 

IN THE EMBRACE OF FRANCE. 

The Sid’-El-Turki put on more steam to keep out- 
side of the Star of the South, in order to jam her in 
and make her run ashore ; and the Star of the South 
put on more steam, to avoid such a fate, and to escape 
from the Sid’-El-Turki. The English yacht ran up 
the Union Jack ; the Moorish warship showed no flag 
at all, but fired a threatening gun. Not a blank 
charge — the barbarian Moors did not trouble them- 
selves with such civilized preliminary politeness — but 
a good, old-fashioned round shot, which flew over 
the main-top of the Star of the South and plunged 
into the sea. It was not soothing to the nerves of. 
those who were on board the Star of the South to 
know thus that they were within easy range of the 
Sid’-El-Turki’s guns. The war spirit of AH was 
roused, and he wished to turn and fight the warship, 
even with the pair of signalling guns on board. But 
when he was told that, although there was powder, 


216 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


there was neither shot nor shell, he saw there was 
nothing to do but to support the captain’s prudent 
resolve to flee. The captain, moreover explained 
that, when put to her pace, the yacht could easily 
show “a clean pair of heels” to a craft like the Moor- 
ish warship. And presently she made good his word, 
and drew away from the Sid’-El-Turki, dragging 
behind her a great white wake spread out like a fan. 

But before they could throw off fear of the pur- 
suit of the Moorish ship, an unlucky incident oc- 
curred. A shot from the Sid’-El-Turki — the gun- 
ners had fired several and had found their range — hit 
the Star of the South on the port-beam and just 
above the water-line. Had that shot been a shell, 
there would probably have been an end of the yacht. 
As it was, one of the steel-plates that composed the 
yacht’s frail shell was stove in, and the danger of her 
sinking was only obviated by slinging overboard a 
mattress to stop the hole. 

By that time the great headland of Tres Forcas 
was in sight. To land anywhere on the near side 
of that cape was impossible, with the Moorish 
warship still in pursuit ; and if it were once rounded, 
the skipper declared to the doctor and Ali that he 
saw nothing for it but to run for the port of Oran in 
Algeria. 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


217 


‘^And then/’ said the doctor, “we shall have 
trouble with the French. We don’t want to land on 
French soil if we can help it.” 

“But we can’t help it,” said the skipper. “We 
must round that blessed head, and if we do that — 
and we must — then we must run on to Oran. 
There’s Melilla round the corner, but that’s Spanish, 
and Spanish would be worse for you than French. 
Besides, at Oran we can get our damage repaired, 
and then run back in the night and land at the spot 
we first arranged for.” 

“We are being driven against our will,” said 
Molly, when that was told her, “into the arms of 
France!” 

There was gloom in her tone; and through her 
senses a shuddering foreboding that Fate had turned 
against her. 

After they rounded the headland of Tres Forcas 
they saw nothing of the Sid’-El-Turki, and in the 
night they entered the Bay of Oran. At daybreak 
their arrival was known to the harbor authorities. 
The yacht flew the British flag, yet it was dis- 
tinguished in the early hours of the morning by a 
visit from the Governor of Oran himself; the 
reason of which soon became apparent. He came 
in no mood of suspicion or of authority, but with' 


218 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


the politeness of a French gentleman and the 
affability of an official representative of the great- 
ness and the hospitality of France. He astonished 
them by singling out Ali at once for his attentions, 
and by addressing him as ‘‘your Excellency’’ and 
''mon Prince** The surprise of Ali and his com- 
pany was manifest. 

“Ah, my Prince,” said the Governor, with a 
smile, “you wonder that I know you? It is not 
possible, sir, to mistake the distinguished counte- 
nance of the Grand Shereef and Prince of Tetuan.” 
And he displayed a Paris illustrated paper, in which 
was a full-page portrait of Ali ; it was plainly copied 
from a photograph taken in London. “Moreover,” 
he added, to their further astonishment, “I received 
a message from Paris that I should be on the qui vive 
for a visit from your Excellency. I was warned 
that the accidents of the sea might drive your Excel- 
lency to the hospitable door of France.” 

“You were warned by telegraph, I suppose, sir?” 
said the doctor. 

“Yes, sir,” answered the Governor; “by tele- 
graph.” 

“France,” said the doctor, “seems to take a very 
great interest in the person and the movements of 
Prince Ali.” 


THE GKEEN TTJEBANS. 


219 


^^France, sir,” responded the Governor, '‘is inter- 
ested — deeply, to the heart! — in the history and the 
fate of a Prince so unfortunate, so persecuted, and 
so noble! France, sir, is prepared to spend blood 
and treasure in support of a Prince so just and so 
distinguished! It is the glory of France, sir, that 
she ever takes to her sympathetic bosom the unfor- 
tunates of the universe !” 

“From Satan downward,” murmured the doctor, 
aside. 

“She has a mission of civilization in the world; 
and she intends to perform it !” said the Governor. 

The Governor alternated between Moorish and 
French, addressing the one to Ali and the other to 
the doctor; and thus it happened that Ali heard with- 
out understanding the last magnificent sentiments. 

“My lord the Governor,” said Ali, speaking with 
dignity and affability in his own tongue, “is as 
generous as the sun, and his words attest the great- 
ness of his soul. Accident has driven us hither to 
the hospitable harbor of France to repair our 
damage ; and I am grateful for the accident, because 
it has brought me face to face with my lord the 
Governor.” The speech was polite enough, and 
florid enough to please the Governor, and then, in an 
outburst of well-calculated generosity, he put him- 


220 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


self, his house, and all that he had at the disposal of 
the Prince, the Princess, and their friends, and in- 
sisted almost on their taking possession at once. 
When his very generous offer was declined, he 
invited them to dinner, and would take no excuse 
nor denial. 

“It is evident,” said Molly, when he had gone, 
“that France is determined to claw Ali to her 
bosom.” 

“Yes,” assented the doctor. “She is like the phi- 
lanthropist who said, ^Confound your soul and body, 
come to me and be blessed!’ Now, who set that 
Moorish ship on the look-out for us — she evidently 
was on the look-out — and who warned this Governor 
that we might turn up here? I wonder if you will 
agree with me as to the answer ?” 

“It is not a very hard riddle,” answered Molly, 
somewhat reluctantly. “De Courcel.” 

“Well,” said Ali, to dismiss the matter, “we will 
go to his dinner, and we will come back; and then 
we shall see no more of him.” 

But that was too sanguine a hope, scarcely justi- 
fied by the evidence of the trouble which had been 
taken to drive Ali to Oran. The Governor was not 
to be shaken off, and it seemed evident that he had 
taken means to detain them. The repair of the 


THE GlIEEX TUKBANS. 


221 


breach in the vessel’s side might have been effected 
in a few hours — in a day at the most; but it was 
delayed and spun out for day after day, doubtless by 
order. And the Governor’s purpose in hindering the 
repair of the yacht, although unconfessed, became 
manifest. By argument and importunity he was 
resolved to make a French citizen of Ali before he 
let go his hold of him ; and had it not been for the 
counter-persuasions of the doctor and Molly, it is 
likely that he would have prevailed with the Grand 
Shereef. For Ali had not forgotten the prophecy 
of the sorceress, ^Miss Cameron, that he would be 
finally established only by the protecting influence of 
a great foreign power. That power might very well 
be France, who was so eager to adopt him as a son. 
It might also be England, as Molly and the doctor 
urged; and so the Governor’s eloquent arguments 
and importunities were of little effect. 

But a crisis came. The Prince and Princess and 
the doctor were again at dinner in the Government 
House. After dinner the Governor manoeuvred to 
lead Molly out upon a balcony overlooking the bay. 
The night was beautiful and balmy, and a young 
moon, newly risen above the hills behind the town, 
flooded the bay and turned the blue waters of the 
Mediterranean to quivering, molten silver. There 


222 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


was an unusual bustle down by the shore, for the 
steamer from Marseilles had just come in. It was 
on the pretence of being refreshed with the beauty 
of the scene that the Governor led Molly out upon 
the balcony, although her woman’s quick sense 
divined he had another motive. Her instinct was 
right. 

^‘Madame,” said the Governor, after some polite 
and sentimental nothings, ‘T desire to speak seriously 
— very seriously. Why does madame oppose all my 
efforts to persuade the Grand Shereef to become a 
protege of France?” 

“Do I, indeed, oppose your efforts, sir?” said 
Molly, carelessly. “How very wicked and foolish 
of me!” 

“Let us be serious, madame.” 

“I am as serious as I can be, sir,” said Molly. 
“But how can a mere woman hinder the Governor 
of Oran, the representative of powerful and glorious 
France — how can she hinder him from attaining his 
desire?” 

“Madame,” said the Governor, “I am not ignorant 
of your history; and I know that you have the mind 
and the resolution of a man, and the finesse of a 
diplomatist. Why do you refuse to see that the 
greatness of your husband — but even his safety — 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


223 


depends upon his accepting the protection of France? 
You are ambitious, madame. You are fitted to 
adorn a great position, but a magnificent position. 
You are fitted for a throne, and a throne might be 
yours — by the help of France.” 

'‘Sir,” broke out Molly, “I may be ambitious, 
but,” she cried, as with a wail of protest, “I love 
my husband! I value his safety, his freedom, and 
his dignity above all things.” 

“Above all things, madame?” queried the Gov- 
ernor, softly, with a thin smile. 

“Frankly,” she continued, with strong feeling, 
‘T do not trust France. If France aided the Grand 
Shereef against the Sultan and established him on 
the throne of Morocco 'in the Sultan’s place, it 
would be that she might after\Vards make him her 
slave. What has happened in recent years in Tunis? 
Do not all men know that France first urged her 
protection upon the Bey, and^then made him her 
creature, her prisoner, a king of straw — without 
power, without liberty, almost without life?” 

The Governor was for a moment set back with 
that indictment. Then he spoke in a low, but in- 
cisive tone, and his first words went to Molly’s heart 
like a musket-shot, 

“Madame, then, is false to her promise — her 
promise to Captain De Courcel!” 


224 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


'Tromise?” murmured Molly. ‘To De Courcel? 
I gave no promise to Captain De Courcel 

The Governor leaned over the balcony. A man 
was walking up to the house from the roadway, 
followed by a lightly-clad Arab porter with luggage. 

'‘Ah! Is it you, mon amif called down the 
Governor. 

“It is I, your Excellency,’^ answered a voice which 
Molly recognized. The recognition made her well- 
nigh faint with astonishment and alarm. 

“Come here at once,” said the Governor. “You 
know the way.” 

In a second or two De Courcel joined them. 
Molly guessed that he had just arrived by the 
steamer from Marseilles, but she expressed neither 
surprise nor welcome. 

“^/r, Madame la Princesse, it is you!” he ex- 
claimed. But Molly said no word. 

“Madame swears,” said the Governor, as if De 
Courcel had merely come from the adjoining room, 
and would at once understand what had been the 
subject of his talk with Molly, “madame swears 
that she never gave you her promise to prevail on 
the Prince.” 

“What?” said De Courcel, brusquely. “Madame 
forgets that I performed her a service — but an ex- 
traordinary service — on that condition I”' 


THE GEEEN TUKBANS. • ”225 

gave no promise!” said Molly, standing erect 
and speaking with decision. 

De Courcel and the Governor talked together in 
quick, low tones, and Molly’s heart beat wildly and 
desperately. 

''BienT said De Courcel, twisting round on his 
heels in military fashion. ‘This is what we have 
to say, madame, and it is to you that we say it : 
To-morrow the Grand Shereef accepts the protection 
of France, or we arrest him and send him as a rebel 
to the Sultan of Morocco I” 

They bowed to her. She turned and walked in. 
On the threshold of the door she paused and faced 
them again with fierce resolution : 

“Spies! Traitors! Canaille! I defy you!” 


226 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


CHAPTER XXL 

AMONG THE WILD MEN OF THE MOUNTAINS. 

Punishment was overtaking Molly for her great 
offence, and she felt that it was. It was bitter 
— bitter ! — to know that, but for the dark and shame- 
ful deed which she had done in Fez, these two 
French schemers would not have dared to propose to 
her that she should betray her husband and his 
future, and that, but for De Courcebs hold on her 
secret, he would not have ventured to present her 
with an ultimatum. She rebelled furiously. She 
would not yield to their threats. She would deliver 
her husband from the danger of which he was 
ignorant ; as to that she was resolved. 

When she was again on board the yacht she 
sought out the skipper, and had a private word with 
him; and then she and the skipper together had a 
private word with the engineer. Presently a sound 
pervaded the ship, as of a thousand rats gnawing at 
hard wood. By good luck the iron plate which the 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


227 


French workmen of Oran had prepared to replace 
the damaged steel one was on board, and the 
engineer and his subordinates were busy drilling 
holes in it and in the vessel’s side, so that the plate 
might be temporarily fixed in its place with screw 
bolts. Ali and the doctor listened and wondered 
what the noise could mean, and the skipper came 
voluntarily to explain. 

‘Ht’s not for nothing,” said he, with indignation, 
‘That them mossoos have been messing us about for 
days. They knew what they were about. I’ve heard 
to-night that they were going to seize the yacht to- 
morrow, and we’re tinkering up to cut away to sea 
as soon as the moon goes down.” 

Ali and the doctor said little, but they commended 
the prudence and the propriety of the skipper’s 
resolve, whether his fear was justified or not. 

When the moon went down and real darkness 
supervened, the Star of the South slipped out of 
the Bay of Oran and steamed westward slowly, 
because she was rudely patched, and because she 
had been lightened of much of her ballast to raise 
the breach in her side out of the water. But her 
navigators succeeded in their purpose, and in the 
dark of the following night the yacht crept in to 
the secret anchorage which she had been seeking 


228 THE GREEN TURBANS. 

when the Moorish warship had come down upon 
her. 

The Star of the South had been finally successful 
in her mission ; she had brought the Grand Shereef 
and Prince of Tetuan back to his native land, to 
the verge of his own domain, to the threshold of 
his home. In the grey light that precedes the dawn, 
a boat was rowed ashore with three passengers 
wrapped in Moorish dress : Ali, Molly, and the doctor 
had transformed their appearance before setting foot 
on Moorish soil. As the keel of the boat grated on 
the pebbles of the shore, the sun rose over the waters. 
Ali was the first to leap out, and in a rapture of de- 
light he flung himself down and kissed the ground — 
the face of his mother, as he said. ‘‘Brown Bar- 
bary” had been a harsh and cruel mother to him and 
his brother; yet he loved her with more than the 
ardor of the exile. And in his native garb and on 
his native soil, he was once more — what he had very 
much forgotten to be in England — a devout Moham- 
medan. He turned to the East and prostrated 
himself in the first adoration of the day. 

“O Giver of Good to all! O Creator!” he mur- 
mured, in Arabic, while Molly looked on, half in 
wonder, half in love and pity mingled; for she 
thought that she had no superstitions. 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


229 


AH rose from his devotions and gazed around 
him with a proud and happy smile; and the bare, 
rocky hills that girt the little bay flushed in the 
newly-risen sun, as if with joy at the return of 
their lord. 

For a little while the shore was busy with the 
coming and going of the boats, and the landing of 
the baggage and the cases of rifles and ammunition ; 
and then, when all was done, the Star of the South 
steamed away, and Ali and his wife and the doctor 
were alone upon the beach. 

When they turned their eyes from the sea to the 
land again, the rocks around showed themselves 
alive with stealthy, half-naked forms, for the natives 
of that piratical coast seem to scent a ship from afar 
with as keen a sense as vultures smell carrion. 

“Hola!” called Ali, striding confidently forward. 
‘‘Come forth! Behold, I am your lord returned! 
Ali of Tetuan \” 

Then from the rocks they came forward, by ones 
and twos and threes — as cut-throat, threatening a 
crew as can be imagined. They were half-clothed, 
and their swarthy arms and shoulders in their lean 
muscularity seemed worked with cords and bands 
of iron. Their bare heads were clean shaved, save 
for one long lock which was mostly fair; for the 


230 


THE GREEN" TURBANS. 


people of that wild northern coast are not true 
Moors, but Berbers — descendants of the original 
inhabitants of the country. They advanced, looking 
about them from under their brows, as if they were 
ever on the watch for attack or defence. 

Molly viewed these men with wonder and dread, 
and asked herself if all her husband’s subjects and 
dependents looked such ruffians. 

‘Tt is indeed our lord — Ali of Tetuan!” cried a 
tall old man, who had come in advance of the others 
and scanned the Grand Shereef with fierce, searching 
gaze. 

Then he and all the company flung themselves on 
the ground, crying : “Our lord Ali ! Protector of 
the poor! Helper of the needy! Feeder of the 
hungry!” and other compliments of a half-savage 
people, who lead a precarious and dangerous exist- 
ence. The first man wriggled forward on the ground 
to kiss Ali’s feet, and the others rose and flung up 
their long guns and caught them as they fell with 
wild cries of delight and welcome. 

The change in Ali caused astonishment and some- 
thing like fear in Molly. The Prince, who in 
civilized England and in European clothes had 
seemed but an agreeable gentleman, soft and pliable 
to the hand of a woman, was now become the robed 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


231 


and stately autocrat, with the absolute power of 
life and death in the glance of his eye and the 
gesture of his hand. After an easy word or two 
of command, all these Wild men stood in eager 
waiting for his orders. And in a little while three 
of them were racing, like goats, over the rocks and 
away over the hills to carry the news of his arrival 
to his own dependents, while the rest ran and 
gave their attention and strength to the carrying of 
the baggage and cases up from the shore to a safe 
and sheltered place among the hills. And it was 
something for Molly and the doctor to remember — 
neither of whom had seen such wild creatures before 
— how they admired such of the rifles as were ex- 
posed to view. They stroked them, patted them, 
kissed them, and laid the butts to their breasts and 
took aim. Their admiration was not merely that 
of children with new and wonderful toys, but that of 
fighters trained to arms who had never seen such 
beautiful weapons before; for the probability is that 
every one of these men was a good shot with his 
own ancient, clumsy gun, and some were sure to be 
skilled artisans and gunsmiths. 

When all things were brought up from the shore, 
Ali and his party sat down in the shade to wait 
for the return of the messengers, who were expected 


232 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


to bring horses to ride, mules or asses for the bag- 
gage, and horsemen for escort. While they sat, 
they talked and gathered the news of the country- 
side. One piece of ominous news was revealed : 
The army of the Sultan was marching north from 
Fez, against whom it was not known; but the tribes 
had taken to their arms and were on the watch, and 
that was why these men had appeared so stealthily 
that morning, for they thought that the yacht might 
be one of the Sultan's ships. 

Weary of waiting, they set forward again a little 
way to the village of the Berbers, who patiently 
transported all the things they had already conveyed 
from the shore. It was late in October, and there 
had been a feeling of winter in the air when the 
travellers had left London, but here it was as delight- 
ful as the finest weather of an English summer. Wild 
roses bloomed and acacias, and bamboo canes with 
their tufted feathers of grass waved and rustled in 
the scented air, while the ground was carpeted with 
gaudy flowers like geraniums. At the village they 
were refreshed with goat's milk and barley cakes, 
and they continued to wait for the return of the 
messengers. 

The sun was sinking behind the snow-capped 
mountains of Beni-Hassen when the Sheikh of the 


a?HE GEEEN TURBANS. 233 

village — the old man who had recognized Ali — 
looking forth from under his hand, declared he saw 
a man running. He must have had an amazing 
range of sight, for he pointed to a speck moving 
down a ridge about two miles distant, and higher 
than the height against which the village was set. 

‘Tt is Hassan,” said the Sheikh, still gazing 
from under his hand. “I know him. He runs 
with his fists up to his breast. And there also 
come Musa and Hamed over the hill; and Hamed 
outruns Musa. Allah preserve us! But they are 
alone! And they run as for life! What mischief 
is afoot?'" 

In less than a quarter of an hour Hassan raced 
panting up the slope, and all waited in silence and 
open-mouthed alarm till he had taken a breath or 
two, for his feet were bleeding, his legs were torn 
with cactus thorns, and the blood was clotted from a 
wound on his scalp. 

‘‘The Kasbah ” — (Kasbah means Castle ) — “of 
the sidi,'" cried Hassan, between his pants, “is 
taken 

“By the Kaid of the Sultan's soldiers," put in 
Hamed, who had just arrived. 

“And all the slaves and the household of the sidi," 
panted Musa, coming up behind, “have been put to 
the sword or carried off !" 


234 


THE GEEBN* TURBAHS. 


resumed Hassan, got this cut on the 
head from an accursed soldier of the Sultan when 
I was prying to learn more/^ 

Then there arose a wail and a hubbub from the 
entire company of natives. They all wished to ques- 
tion the returned messengers, and they were all ready] 
to utter the belief that the next stage in the destroy- 
ing progress of the Sultan’s troops would be art 
an attack upon themselves. 

‘Teace, my children !” said Ali, striding in among 
them. ‘‘To prevent the soldiers of the son of a 
slave from pushing further at us we must push at 
them. It is necessary, above all things, that I rescue 
from them the stronghold and the home of my 
fathers.” 

To that courageous declaration there was an 
instant chorus of approval ; for these Berbers of the 
north are daring and resolute to a fault. The dark- 
ness descended like a curtain while they eagerly dis- 
cussed how the sidi’s purpose might be achieved. It 
was quite dark when Molly slipped her hand into her 
husband’s arm and drew him aside. She was trem- 
bling and eager and singularly hesitating for her. 
Had there been light to show them, Ali might have 
wondered at the pallor and anxiety of her counter 


nance. 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


235 


r 

‘‘If you are going to fight the Sultan's soldiers," 
said she, “you must have means." 

“I have means, dearest one," he answered. “Have 
I not all these boxes of guns and ammunition ?" 

“But I mean money," said Molly. “You must 
have money also. They call money the sinews of 
war, and you have no sinews. I have — a good deal 
of money — sent from London for me to Gibraltar. 
Let me go and get it — or get some of it." 

“I will not take your money, dear one," >said he, 
“to spend in war." 

“You must!" said she, earnestly and urgently. 
“Ah, yes, you will 1 What is mine is thine. Surely 
it is so." 

“Well," said he, “let us speak of it further when 
we have slept." 


236 


THE GEEEN TUKBANS. 


CHAPTER XXIL 

MOLLY IN TANGIER. 

The day of home-coming which had begun so 
brightly for Prince Ali of Tetuan ended thus in 
threatening of disaster and death. Did he, there- 
fore, wish himself away again ? Not he. For him 
there was no place where his life could be fulfilled 
except in his own land, and especially that part of it 
consecrated by his dear dead brother's memory. 
He regarded his brother as a martyr to the cause of 
his people; and, although he could not fulfill his 
brother’s desire completely for him, his instincts 
as Prince and soldier told him that he must, and 
could, keep his inherited principality free from the 
devastation of the invader and the cruelty of the 
oppressor. He did not think of himself as philan- 
thropic, but he truly was ; for there are times when 
the only possible philanthropist is the soldier. 

Having resolved, then, that the marauding 
ruffians of the Sultan must be driven from his home 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


237 


and from among his people, and having concluded, 
after discussion with his wife and the doctor, that 
money would be needed for his enterprise, he 
reluctantly accepted Molly'^s offer. 

So it came about that, very early next morning, 
Molly set out for Tangier, riding on an ass and 
escorted by four of the hardy mountaineers, of 
whom the chief was the old Sheikh. The doctor 
wished to go with her, but she had reasons for 
desiring to be alone on her venturesome journey, 
and she firmly declined the doctor’s company. She 
counted on being absent a full week, but she went 
off as gaily as for a mere morning’s excursion. 

‘'May Allah protect thee, dear one!” said Ali, at 
parting ; and Molly gave his thin dark hand a fervent 
pressure. 

For it relieved her heart, congested with doubt 
and shame and fear, to believe that she would 
undergo fatigue, and run the risk of privation and 
death, for her husband’s sake. Her mere liking for 
him had grown to love, and her love was becoming 
a passion. In that she found her acutest punishment 
for the crime she had committed against his brother. 
Love had softened poor Molly’s nature, and, having 
cast out the devil of selfishness, as it ever must, it 
showed her how atrocious had been her offence. It 


238 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


made Her shed bitter tears in the dead of night, it 
scourged her spirit with scorpions of self-loathing^ 
till any opportunity for self-punishment, for penance, 
for restitution, seemed to her a heaven of happiness. 

We need not linger over Molly's journey to 
Tangier, for she did not. Steadily her ass, with 
the knock knees but the sure feet of her kind, 
plodded on from early morn till set of sun, with a 
very short interval at mid-day; and steadily Molly 
urged her forward, without increasing her pace; 
for the ass, like Time, would neither halt nor be 
hurried. It was a strange, picturesque land of 
mountain and stream, with very little wood, through 
which Molly passed. But she had no eyes for the 
face of the country ; like her heart, they were bent far 
forward, and fixed upon her goal, and her goal was 
Gibraltar. 

After three days' steady plodding she was in 
Tangier. She went to a quiet hotel where she 
had been known. She was recognized, despite her 
Moorish dress, and given entertainment ; but her wild 
escort aroused much attention and some alarm. The 
Swiss proprietor was doubtful of letting them cross 
his threshold ; but Molly overcame his scruples with 
her great art of persuasion. 

'T must cross to Gibraltar on important business," 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


239 


said she ; ^^and I know you will keep them for me till 
I come back. They will behave well, I promise you 
— if they are not insulted.” 

That arranged, she set out in a litter to visit the 
English ambassador. Sir Edward still represented 
Great Britain in the land of the Moors, and, because 
it was still October, he kept house in the villa on the 
hill. Molly would not give her name at Sir Edward’s 
gate, but simply said that an English lady wished to 
see the Ambassador on business of importance. The 
Ambassador, who was much troubled with the plague 
of lady tourists, sent one of his secretaries to see her. 
But to him she would neither declare her business 
nor reveal her identity; she remained veiled, and 
said she must see Sir Edward. 

^T am an old acquaintance of his,” said she. 

Then Sir Edward came, though in something of a 
fume of impatience. 

“You wish to see me personally, madam.e?” he 
said. But his frown was smoothed out, and his curt 
tone became suavely modulated, when Molly raised 
her veil and showed herself as fresh and lovely as 
ever. “Good gracious, Mrs. Neale!” 

“I’ve ceased to be Mrs. Neale for some time. Sir 
Edward,” said Molly, with her enchanting smile. 

“True! True!” said he. “I should have re- 


240 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


membered! I have heard — but not officially. You 
are Grand Shereefia and Princess of Tetuan.” He 
bowed and smiled, and said, ^Well, well,” as if in 
assent to a strange and almost incredible fact. ‘‘Well, 
now,” he continued, after a pause, which she filled in 
with a luminous, enigmatic smile, “what can I do for 
you?” 

Molly was alert and business-like at once. 

“I have something of importance to do in Gibral- 
tar to-morrow; I must cross in the morning,” said 
she. 

“And you would like me to send a dragoman — or 
a secretary? — with you.” 

“A dragoman, please. Sir Edward, will be quite 
enough — if you will be so good; and a note from 
yourself to the Manager of the Bank, where a letter 
of credit will have arrived.” 

“What would you like me to say?” asked Sir Ed- 
ward, drawing up at once to pen and ink. 

“Oh, just that you know me,” said Molly, lightly, 
“and that you hope he will make a point of obliging 
me with the sum I need in cash.” 

“I see,” said Sir Edward. “Is the sum a large 
one?” 

“Five thousand pounds,” answered Molly, in a 
tone of matter-of-fact. 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


241 


'Tive thousand pounds!” echoed Sir Edward, in 
amazement. ‘Tn gold? But, my dear lady, have 
you any idea how heavy that would be ?” 

‘‘Oh,” said she, carelessly, “I can carry some of it 
in Bank of England notes : I know the Moorish Jews 
will take them as readily as gold. Don’t be anxious. 
I can manage to carry it all.” 

Sir Edward laid down his pen, to perform what 
was, if not a diplomatic, at least a conscientious, 
duty. 

“I think I ought to ask you,” said he, “where you 
mean to take all that money in cash, and what you 
mean to do with it.” 

“I mean to bring it back here,” said Molly, with 
a touch of impatience, “and give it to my husband.” 

“Give it to Prince Ali?” exclaimed Sir Edward. 
“Here ? He is back in Morocco then ?” 

“He is,” answered Molly — “in the neighborhood 
of his own place.” 

“Good Heavens!” exclaimed Sir Edward, jump- 
ing to his feet as if stung by a wasp. “But he is out- 
lawed by the Sultan, and the Sultan has sent an ex- 
pedition to seize his Kasbah !” 

“I know,” said Molly. “That is why I’m here. 
Prince Ali means to have and to enjoy his own, in 
spite of the Sultan.” 


242 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


will fight, you mean?’’ queried Sir Edward. 

*‘Will fie not!” said Molly. 

“^'Tfiat will complicate,” said Sir Edward, 
wrinkling his brows, ‘ Vhat has been a very awkward 
situation.” 

‘There are some people of consequence. Sir Ed- 
ward,” said Molly, “who seem to think it will sim- 
plify the situation.” 

“Whom do you mean ?” asked the Ambassador. 

“The French authorities,” answered Molly. 
“They have been trying their hardest for ever so 
long to prevail on AH to make himself a French 
subject. If he does — and they think he will — they 
will help him in his fight with the Sultan, and the 
Sultan will not come off best.” 

“And I suppose,” smiled Sir Edward, “to establish 
their maxim about ‘finding the woman,’ they have 
tried to enlist you on their side.” 

“They have,” answered Molly; “and, failing me, 
they have tried to enlist force.” And she related 
(as fully as she thought necessary) their adventures 
at Oran. 

“That certainly looks,” said Sir Edward, “as if 
they meant business.” And thoughtfully he felt his 
grey moustache. 

“Don’t you mind. Sir Edward?” asked Molly, 
piqued with his apparent lack of interest. 


THE GEEEH TURBANS. 


243 


‘‘Mind, my dear lady? Of course I do — person- 
ally. For one thing, the Frenchifying of Ali would 
mean your Frenchification too, and that I should 
regret.” 

“Not more than I should, Sir Edward. But I 
had not thought of that, to tell the truth. Is there 
no way of keeping me from becoming French?” 

“The fact is,” said Sir Edward, in a tone of con- 
fidence, “our Foreign Office does not care to be 
bothered with such things. Prince Ali, I may tell 
you, has caused the Office a good deal of trouble all 
the time* he has been in England; and I imagine the 
Government would be glad if it had heard the last of 
him. But,” he added, suddenly resuming his pen, 
“I may have thought of something by the time you 
get back from Gibraltar.” 

So he wrote the note Molly had desired for the 
manager of the bank, and handed it to her ; and thus 
she understood the interview was at an end. 

Next morning a dragoman from the Embassy 
waited at her hotel to accompany her across the sea 
to Gibraltar. On the way to the shore she attracted 
considerable attention — not on her own account, but 
because she, being apparently a Moorish lady, was 
attended by a man who plainly belonged to one of 
the European Embassies. The notice she thus drew 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


M4: 

upon herself was not lessened on the shore, which 
was unusually crowded, and where she was caused 
unusual delay. 

“What are we waiting for?” she asked, impa- 
tiently of the dragoman, raising a corner of her veil. 

A Moor who was standing by turned himself 
sharply at the words, and showed himself to be De 
Courcel ! He could scarcely have seen Molly’s face, 
but he probably recognized the voice, the more 
readily that the words uttered were English. He 
answered at once in English, before the dragoman 
had shaped a reply. 

“The Sid’ El Helba, madame, has returned from 
his English mission, and is about to land. Is ma- 
dame waiting to cross the water?” 

Molly said no word ; but the dragoman, who per- 
haps recognized De Courcel, made answer with 
some volubility. 

“Yes, sir. Madame crosses to Gibraltar, and I 
go with her to take care,” said he. 

“Ah, then,” said De Courcel, “madame goes to 
return ?” 

“Madame,” answered the obliging dragoman, 
“returns with me when her business is done.” 

Thus he spake, and Molly did not dare to inter- 
rupt him, lest she should absolutely reveal Herself. 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


245 


De Courcel smiled, witH a sidelong eye upon her 
veiled face. 

^^Balak! Balak! Way there for the Sid’ El 
Helba!” 

The cries came swelling along, and people ran this 
way and that. De Courcel moved off, saying, ‘We 
shall meet again, madam e.” 

When the bustle of the Basha’s landing was over, 
Molly^ and her dragoman were allowed to go on 
board the boat for Gibraltar. 


246 


THE GKEEN* THEBANS. 


CHAPTER XXIIL 

MOLLY PLOTS AND PLANS. 

Molly was terribly disturbed — not to say fright- 
ened — by that awkward and unexpected encounter 
with De Courcel, and especially by his parting 
words, which seemed to her to convey a threat. 
shall meet again, madame” 

What should that mean but the intention of way- 
laying her on her return from Gibraltar? — of mak- 
ing a prisoner of her, perhaps — for she was not 
ignorant of the ordinary law that a wife puts on the 
nationality of her husband! But why should De 
Courcel — or the French authorities, or the Moorish, 
for whom he might be supposed to act — why should 
he seek to take forcible possession of her person? 
There could be no doubt that he (and they) might 
hope to get at her husband through her ; and perhaps 
he (or they) had some suspicion, or some means of 
learning the purpose for which she was making the 
trip to Gibraltar. 

Presuming, then, that De Courcel wished to way- 


THE GEEEH THKBAHS. 


247 


lay and arrest her on her return, how could she avoid 
him ? There was no way by which she could return 
to Morocco save Tangier; besides that, she had en- 
gaged to see the English Ambassador again. So her 
problem was how to return and pass through Tan- 
gier, and yet give De Courcel (or those for whom he 
acted) the slip. That was her difficulty; and ponder 
and contrive as she might, she saw no way of getting 
over it. 

But she had barely stepped ashore at Gibraltar, 
when Providence (Molly called it ‘‘Providence,” and 
was properly grateful) confronted her with a means 
of evading, if not of overcoming, her difficulty. She 
was driving in a victoria to the bank when, in a press 
of traffic, her vehicle was brought almost to a stand. 
She noted then that a lady on the pavement was re- 
garding her veiled figure very closely and earnestly ; 
and, having noted that, she promptly recognized the 
lady. She was that Miss Cameron, palmist and seer, 
who figured actively in the earlier scenes of this 
story. Without thought of anything but speaking 
to an acquaintance, Molly told the dragoman to step 
out and beg the lady to come to her. Miss Cameron 
came, wondering. 

“How do you do, dear?” said Molly, raising her 
veil sufficiently to give a glimpse of her face. 


US 


THE GEEEH THEBANS. 


‘^Good gracious !” exclaimed Miss Cameron. *Tt’s 
Mrs. Neale! I mean, of course, the Princess Ali. 
Oh, Pm so glad to see you ! But do excuse me if I 
ask why you are wearing these things 

‘Well/’ said Molly, “I have just come over from 
Tangier on some business, and I don’t want to be 
recognized. Besides,” she added, ‘T have become 
almost a Moor.”- 

“Oh, what a good idea,” exclaimed Miss Cameron, 
“to go about like that when you don’t want to be 
known ! Oh,” she burst forth, “I am very unhappy ! 
Do let me tell you about it !” 

“I am going to the bank,” said Molly, “and then 
I am going to a hotel. You can talk to me on the 
way. I want to get back to Tangier to-day.” 

“Oh,” said Miss Cameron, “I am going to Tan- 
gier. I must. That’s what I am unhappy about.” 

Instantly Molly’s attention was arrested. For ' 
some reason Miss Cameron wanted to cross to 
Tangier. What if ? And in that mood of sur- 

mise and self-debate she heard, half-absently. Miss 
Cameron tell her story of unhappiness. Yet there 
was small excuse for inattention; for it was an ex- 
traordinary story, and such as most women would 
love to hear. 

This is the story Miss Cameron told : — 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


249 


She was staying with some friends (Miss Cam- 
eron was always staying with friends) at a sunny, 
sandy place on the south coast of England. She 
was not very well : she was run down. One day, 
on her return from a tiring walk over the glaring 
sands, she dreamed a dream; in truth, she saw a 
vision (whether in the body or out of the body she 
could not tell) — a vision from which she woke in a 
shaking fright. She saw a great plain of burning 
sand, and over it she went toiling in spirit after a 
friend, who (she somehow was aware) moved with 
his life in his hand. Over the plain she came to a 
castle on a green hill in a valley; and in that 
castle, deep in a dungeon, she found the friend for 
whom she sought. He had incurred the deep hatred 
of the owner of the castle. 

(Molly made mental note of the fact that the 
^‘friend” of Miss Cameron was allowed to be a 
man.) 

He treasured a letter in his bosom which (she 
was conscious) the owner of the castle wished to 
have. Presently there came a fierce man, with fiery 
eyes, a black beard, and in a great green turban. 

‘‘A Shereef,” said Molly. ‘That means a man 
that claims to be descended from the Prophet Mo- 
hammed or his family.” 


250 


THE GEEEH TUEBAHS. 


Miss Cameron continued her story : — ^The man in 
the green turban dragged her friend away, out of 
the dungeon and up into a hall of light, where the 
owner of the castle was waiting to receive him. He 
stood up boldly before the lord of the castle, and 
refused to surrender the letter he kept in his bosom. 
Then the lord of the castle fell upon him in a great 
rage, crying out, ‘Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!’’ 
There seemed to be a blinding flash and an explo- 
sion — and Miss Cameron knew no more. The vision 
was dissolved; and she sat up, fully awake, and 
trembling with excitement ; and the people about her 
said she had uttered a cry o'f mortal terror. 

‘T see,” said Molly. ‘T understand. And you 
have come here — ^you intend to cross to Morocco — 
to look for that friend ?” 

“Yes; I do,” answered Miss Cameron. 

“May I venture,” said Molly, “to express my sus- 
picion who the friend is ?” 

“You may, if you wish to,” answered Miss Cam- 
eron. 

“You have confessed, you know,” said Molly, 
“that it is a man. Well, I think the man you know 
best, that has anything to do with Morocco, is the 
Frenchman, Monsieur De Courcel. I believe he is 
the friend you are anxious about.” 


THE GEEEN^ THEBANS. 


251 


"'Since you have guessed so well about the one 
man, dear,’’ said Miss Cameron, with a smile, ""per- 
haps you can make a guess at the other. Who do 
you think is the man who has him in his power ?” 

""I have not thought of him,” answered Molly. 

""Shall I tell you who he is?” said Miss Cameron. 
""I saw him quite plainly. He is the Prince Ali of 
Tetuan.” 

""Nonsense!” exclaimed Molly; for in truth she 
was astonished and alarmed at the suggestion, which 
had not occurred to her, but which now seemed very 
feasible. 

""It was the Prince Ali I saw in my vision,” re- 
peated Miss Cameron : ""that I assure you, my dear.” 

The inference was plain: the vision concerned 
Molly as well as Miss Cameron. But Molly was 
silent. She was occupied with the elaboration of a 
plan which should ensure her safe passage through 
any Moorish or French watchfulness at Tangier, 
and her triumphant return to her husband, with every 
available means for maintaining himself against 
all that Moor or Frenchman might attempt against 
him. 

She entered the bank alone, and was received by 
the manager, whom she asked to see. She presented 
her letter from Sir Edward, and heard that her letter 


252 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


of credit had arrived — just arrived, She made her 
demand for five thousand pounds, but hastened to 
make the remarkable qualification : 

‘T am in no immediate haste for the money. How- 
ever. This afternoon by closing time will do.’’ 

Then she returned to her carriage and the company 
of Miss Cameron. She seemed excessively worried, 
in the brief glimpse she allowed of her face. Miss 
Cameron inquired if all had gone well with her 
business in the bank. 

‘‘Well, yes — and no, dear,” answered Molly. “I 
can’t have the money I want till to-morrow; and 
that’s a disappointment, because I intended to take 
the boat back to Tangier to-day with you. You’re 
going to-day, aren’t you ?” 

“I intended to go to-day,” answered Miss Cam- 
eron. 

“I would go to-day if I were you,” answered 
Molly. “There is no time to be lost. I’ll give you 
a note to Sir Edward — our Ambassador, you know 
— and his dragoman will go back with you.” 

“It’s awfully kind of you. Princess,” said Miss 
Cameron. 

“Where are you staying?” asked Molly. 

“At the Shore Hotel,” answered Miss Cameron. 

“I’ll go there, too,” said Molly; “and we can 


THE GKEEN TUEBANS. 


253 


finish our talk. I can tell you one or two things to 
help you. You've never been in Morocco before, I 
suppose ?” 

‘‘Never," said Miss Cameron. 

“That’s a pity," said Molly; “especially a pity 
when you wear European clothes — even when you 
have an Embassy dragoman with you." 

“What can I do?" said Miss Cameron. 

“Well, dear, you could go across and move about 
Tangier unnoticed if you happened to wear the 
native dress — a dress like this of mine." 

“But I suppose that can’t be got at a moment’s 
notice?" 

“Til tell you what I’ll do," said Molly, in a burst 
of generosity. “I’ll be kind and lend you mine, 
and you can lend me a jacket and skirt and a hat: 
either what you have on, or anything else." 

“Oh, that is kind!" said Miss Cameron. “But 
won’t that be awkward and disagreeable for you?’^ 

“I know the people and the language, you see,” 
said Molly. “I won’t run such risks as you 
would.” 

That seemed a very natural, kindly, and proper 
exchange; and Miss Cameron evidently had no 
suspicion of any purpose other than what appeared 
behind it. The exchange was effected; and the 


254 


THE GEEEH TURBANS. 


two, as if to seal their complete understanding, sat 
down to a meal together. Soon after that it was 
time for Miss Cameron to prepare for her passage 
across the Strait. Molly wrote her a note addressed 
to Sir Edward, consigned her (in her Moorish dress) 
to the care of the dragoman, and gave her her bless- 
ing. So Miss Cameron departed. 

doing her no harm — no wrong,” said Molly 
to herself, in excuse of her conduct, as she saw. her 
go. ‘Tf she falls into De Courcehs hands, — or arms 
— instead of me, it is only what she most intensely 
desires.” 

But as soon as Miss Cameron was gone (arrayed 
in Molly’s Moorish garments), Molly (arrayed in 
Miss Cameron’s English hat and coat and skirt) 
set off incontinently to a certain place where she 
could have full and authentic news of the move- 
ments of the garrison. It will be remembered that 
Molly was a British soldier’s widow, and she knew 
Gibraltar as well as Kensington or Bayswater. 
The particular place where she called shall remain 
unnamed. She learned, however, what she wished 
to know. She remembered that in the evening of 
every day, or of every other day, a private vessel 
left Gibraltar for Tangier to bring fresh vegetables 
and fruit, and such-like produce, for the garrison. 
At the same time despatches (if there were any) 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


255 


were carried to the British representative in 
Tangier. The vessel was known as ‘The Garrison 
boat.’' She now learned that “the Garrison boat” 
would cross that evening early ; and she made 
interest with the skipper of the boat (whom she 
had known and charmed in other days), so that he 
gaily agreed to carry her over the Strait — since 
she was in haste, and had been so unfortunate as to 
miss the regular public service. 

Why did Molly strive to compass that arrange- 
ment? She had never intended — if she could help 
it — to wait till the next day, because she saw that, if 
De Courcel discovered quickly, as he probably would, 
that the lady in the Moorish dress whom he had 
caught at from the regular boat was not the person 
he had hoped to lay hold of — -even herself — he would 
be certain to lie in wait for the next arrival of the 
boat, and her well-contrived scheme to make use of 
Miss Cameron would be of no effect. By passing 
over in “the Garrison boat,” Molly would arrive not 
only by an unexpected means, but also before De 
Courcel could have time to turn round. Therein, 
she reckoned, lay her safety. 

Behold our Princess Molly, then, tossing away 
from Gibraltar in “the Garrison boat” just after 
dark. She had five thousand pounds upon her (two 
hundred pounds in two bags of golden sovereigns 


256 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


and half-sovereigns, and the rest in crisp Bank of 
England notes), and she had hope, high hope, and 
ambition before her. But she was not only eager 
and ambitious ; to her own surprise, she was also in 
love. And when the moon rose and flooded the 
surface of the sea and the ever-romantic African 
shore with her soft, tender, and mysterious light, 
then Molly was very much in tune for sentiment; 
and she lingered fondly and ardently on the thought 
of her princely lover and husband whom the bur- 
nished sun had touched both in temper and in look. 

It was late when she landed, but not too late, she 
conceived, to accomplish more business that night. 
She hastened to her hotel, summoned the old chief 
of her guard of mountaineers, and with him set out 
on mule-back to the house of Sir Edward on the hill. 
As she rode away, with the old mountaineer at the 
head of her mule, a man came from among the 
shadows about the hotel and followed after, still 
keeping among the shadows as much as possible. 
Molly saw and noted him, and her heart misgave her ; 
for, though he was habited like a Rifiian, with his 
long lock of hair hanging from the side of his shaven 
scalp, and his long gun under his arm, she found it 
hard to believe he was merely a night-prowler, intent 
upon laying hold of whatever unconsidered trifles of 
plunder he might come upon. 


THE G-REEN TUEBANS. 


26 ? 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

HAST THOU FOUND ME, O MINE ENEMY? 

The man followed continually — falling behind at 
the opener and better lighted parts of the road — 
followed all the way to within sight of Sir Edward’s 
gate. But he did nothing but follow, and when 
Molly found herself under Sir Edward’s roof with- 
out molestation she breathed freely again. Her 
mountaineer guard she left at the gate with the mule ; 
but she said nothing to him about the lurking Rifhan^ 
lest he should be tempted to turn upon the man, and 
trouble might come of it. 

But Molly’s feeling of security passed very quickly. 
She was no sooner within Sir Edward’s house than 
she became aware that the Ambassador must be 
entertaining that night. There were many lights, 
and the abounding sounds of piano-playing here and 
laughter and talk there. She had barely taken in 
the significance of these things when a sight met her 


258 


THE GEEEH TUEBANS. 


eyes which smote her heart chill with dread. De 
Courcel stood before her, smiling ! 

said we should meet again, madame,” said he, 
in French. 

She had it on her lips to ask, ^'Where is Miss 
Cameron?” but she refrained. She looked at him 
helplessly an instant, without speaking. She felt 
as if Sir Edward had betrayed her, for De Cour- 
cel’s dress proclaimed him a guest. But she re- 
minded herself, however, that, after all, she was in 
the English Ambassador’s house, and therefore 
under his protection. But what especially roused 
her to the sense of herself and resentment of De 
Courcel was his next sentence. Looking on her 
with a show of tenderness and triumph combined, 
and with a generous spread of the hands, he spoke 
again in French. 

''My word of honor, madame, I truly fill myself 
with sorrow for you! You find yourself, as one 
says, between the Devil and the Deep Sea I I have 
pity of you !” 

"I have no need, no desire, for your pity, sir!” 
answered Molly. "And I know not why you con- 
tinue to pursue me with these misconceived senti- 
ments of yours!” 

"You do not understand, madame?” said De 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


259 


Coiircel, again alert and Mephistophelian. ‘Then 
I will give myself the trouble to explain. There 
is time. I see you look to the door; but his 
Excellency cannot come for a quarter of an hour; 
he is what you say ‘engaged.' I saw you arrive, 
and I made certain to have the first word — and a 
sufficient one. Sit you, madame.” 

Molly hesitated but an instant. She saw no 
advantage in making a scene, in breaking from 
De Courcel's presence and from the room. She was 
truly hard beset; but she accepted the situation, 
and sat down to hear what De Courcel had to say. 

“When the bird has the string about its leg, 
madame, it merely makes the string tighter by 
trying to escape,” he began, evidently well pleased 
with his figure of speech. There is a string 
between us, madame; you are at one end, and I am 
at the other — no matter which; but I declare I am 
not the bird. Now I know why you are here, 
madame ; and I make guess why you cross to 
Gibraltar. You go to Gibraltar to get money to 
aid Prince Ali to fight the Sultan. By the way, did 
my Prince find the rifles and the ammunition in 
good state? You see I — we — have no desire that 
the Prince should not fight the Sultan: for France 
it is all the better that he should. So continue, 


260 


THE GKEEN TUEBANS. 


madame, to provide him with all the money. But 
also you have come here to his Excellency to urge 
him to take Prince Ali under English protection ; but 
you will not succeed.’^ 

“If you are so certain I cannot succeed,” said 
Molly, “why trouble about it ?” 

De Courcel blinked an instant, and then he went 
on again. “Well, if I allow for a moment — to my- 
self — that madame might succeed, it is only of com- 
pliment to the charm and persuasion that madame 
may practice upon his Excellency. Her Britannic 
Majesty’s Government desires that it be not trou- 
bled with such matters ; and the Government is wise, 
for the future in Morocco is with France,” he 
continued, with that gay and expansive boastful- 
ness which Frenchmen delight in. “The English 
cannot help it; the Moors cannot help it; it is 
Kismet — it is Fate. And all they do will be rubbed 
out by Fate — like that.” And he gracefully waggled 
his hand, as if rubbing out chalkings on a black- 
board. 

“Again I say,” repeated Molly, “if Fate has 
made all that certain, why trouble?” 

“Because, madame, the gods help those who help 
themselves. Fate always needs agents; without 
agents Fate would be a giant without hands, with- 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


261 


out feet. I am one of the hands of Fate; I accom- 
plish the design of Fate.” 

“This is interesting,” said Molly, sarcastic for 
once; “but what has it to do with me?” 

“Because you, madame, seek to hinder — to con- 
tradict — the design of Fate. To return, madame, 
to details ; you try to prevent — still try to prevent — 
Prince Ali from accepting his Fate, and putting 
himself in the arms of France.” 

“Is it not perfectly natural?” said Molly. “I 
am English : since he cannot with safety continue 
Moorish, I wish him to become English, too.” 

“Dear madame,” said De Courcel, “is it necessary 
to argue the matter again ? I have given you strong 
reasons before; now I will give you stronger. You 
think I was a fool and threw away the string by 
which I held you? You think I burned a certain 
little parchment, written with Arabic characters? — 
you think I put it in the fire when I saw you last in 
London? Behold!” Triumphantly he drew from 
his pocket the well-known, damnatory bit of writing, 
and showed Molly plainly the signature of “Mary 
Neale.” 

“But I saw it burn !” exclaimed Molly, with such 
a desperate pain at her heart as a woman may feel 
when a doctor tells her she has but a week to live. 


262 


THE GEEEN TUKBANS. 


‘'You saw a paper burn, but not that!’’ answered 
De Courcel. 

Molly sat with her hands tightly clasped in her 
lap, and gazed at her tormentor. She could not 
doubt his design; but he did not spare her the 
recital. 

"You, madame, must prevail upon Prince Ali to 
seek the protection of France, or else I put this 
little parchment into his hand. I set out for his 
Kasbah this very night — the Sid’ El Helba has 
already gone — and I desire, madame, that you 
promise your persuasion, and also that you accom- 
pany me on the road. Now, madame, I pray you 
decide.” 

As we know, Molly was not unused to finding 
herself in a critical situation; and while custom had 
not dulled for her the horror and the dread of such 
a position, it had provoked in her such policy and 
resource as De Courcel himself might have envied. 
She quickly took her decision. She resolved to 
accept De Courcel’s terms, with the full intention 
of finding a way of escape from them before the 
end was reached. She rose. 

"Very well,” she said, "I am not prepared to defy 
you, — as I should like to do. So I will go with 
you.” 


THE GREEH TURBANS. 


263 


*'And you give your promise to make Prince Ali 
the protected of France?’' 

“I will do all I can/’ she answered, with the 
persistent feminine desire for evasion. 

“That is not sufficient, madame. You must give 
your complete promise — which, me I know, you are 
quite able to fulfill. 

“Very well,” said she, “I give it. But I must first 
return to my hotel, and find the mountain-men who 
were my escort to Tangier.” 

“From where, madame?” 

“From the place,” answered Molly, readily, 
“where I left my husband, the Prince.” 

“Certainly, madame,” said De Courcel, “you shall 
return to your hotel, and find your mountain-men, 
and a faithful friend and servant of mine — who is 
also a mountain-man — shall accompany you.” 

“Ah,” said Molly, “a man of the Riff, who already 
has accompanied me from my hotel to this house?” 

“Probably the same, madame,” answered De 
Courcel, with a smile. 

“And now,” she said, “I have come here to see 
Sir Edward, and sent in my name; how am I to 
leave without seeing him?” 

"'Mats done” said De Courcel, twisting about on 
his heels, “here is Sir Edward.” 


264 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


In truth, Sir Edward was just entering the room, 
and Molly maliciously left to De Courcel the ex- 
planation of his presence with her. The open door 
and the open window furnished him with sufficient 
excuse. He had seen the ‘^dear Princess,” who 
was an old acquaintance, and he had ventured in 
to offer his homages and his services. He con- 
ceived madame the Princess wished to return to 
her husband, and since he was setting out in that 
direction this very night, he had begged that she 
would journey with him and have the protection of 
his party, and madame the Princess had graciously 
consented. 

“Yes,” said Molly, compelled to speak by the 
query in Sir Edward’s look, “that is so. I have 
agreed to set out at once — on my return to my 
hotel with M. De Courcel.” Then it was necessary 
for her to assign some open reason for her visit to 
the Ambassador; for, although De Courcel retired 
to the threshold of the window as if to allow her 
privacy of speech, she knew he would listen, and if 
she spoke low and long he would suspect her of 
breaking her promise. She therefore said in a 
voice he could hear, “I have to thank you. Sir Ed- 
ward, for making my business at Gibraltar easy. 
And I wanted to ask you if you had seen a Miss 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


265 


Cameron to-day — this evening? I saw her off 
from Gibraltar by the regular boat, which my busi- 
ness would not permit me to catch : I crossed, you 
know, by ‘the Garrison boat.’ I sent her to you with 
your dragoman.” 

“Cameron? Cameron?” said Sir Edward. “Yes, 
she called ; but I could not see her, and she is coming 
again in the morning.” 

“When she does come,” said Molly, earnestly, 
“listen to what she has to say. Sir Edward : she’s a 
prophetess, you know — a second sight person — a 
seer.” Sir Edward smiled in toleration. “It is 
true,” said Molly; “and M. De Courcel there could 
tell you something of the truth of her prophecies — 
could you not, M. De Courcel?” 

“What then, madame?” said M. De Courcel, 
turning him about and taking a step or two nearer. 

“Tell'of the truth of Miss Cameron’s prophecies?” 

“Oh, but, yes,” he answered. “Unfortunately, it 
is late now to speak of such things.” And he 
turned him to the window again. 

Molly seized that opportunity for one urgent 
word to the Ambassador — urgent and passionate, 
and bare of pretence. 

“For Heaven’s sake,” she said, in a low voice, 
“follow after us as quickly as you can, — if you 
would avert a great disaster ! I rely on you !” 


266 


THE GEEEH TUEBAHS. 


But Sir Edward was middle-aged, and altogether 
unused to the melodramatic side of diplomacy. 
Her urgent words merely flustered and puzzled him. 

^‘Good-bye, Sir Edward,’’ she said, aloud and in 
ordinary tones; ‘^and thank you very much. I 
hope we may meet again soon.” 

'‘Yes, yes,” said he; "I hope we may.” 

And so they said "Good-bye,” and Molly went 
out into the night with De Courcel. 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


267 


CHAPTER XXV. 

THE GREEN TURBANS TO THE RESCUE. 

So Molly rode out of Tangier that night as the 
moon was going down. It was a well-mounted 
party to which she was attached, for its leader, 
De Courcel, was in haste ; and yet the mountaineers 
who formed Molly’s escort maintained the pace on 
foot. They rode and they ran through the rest of 
the night, eastward, and still eastward, with bare 
dark hills on either hand — rode and ran until 
lemon-colored tints in the sky before them climbed 
upward, and slowly, like the waking of a sleepy 
giant, gave easy place to the rose of light. At 
length the brilliance of the sun himself looked 
dazzlingly over the edge of the world ; and then the 
whole cavalcade stopped, as if at the word of 
command, and all the natives prostrated themselves 
for the morning prayer — 

'‘O Giver of good to all! O Creator T 


268 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


They ate a morsel, and then rode on again while 
the day remained cool. About ten oAlock a halt 
was called, tents were pitched, and a good breakfast 
was prepared. Of breakfast all ate heartily, for the 
air was of the sort that provoked an eager appetite — 
the chief persons eating first, and the escort and 
servants afterwards. Molly was again in the guise 
of a Moorish lady, a character which she must main- 
tain with the tribesmen, and therefore she ate her 
meal apart from all the others — for which dispensa- 
tion she was grateful. When breakfast was eaten, 
the whole company collapsed to sleep in what shade 
there was, looking, some like little mounds of dirty 
clothes, and others like sheets spread out to dry. 

But Molly was wakeful; and she appeared to 
have all the waking to herself. No other man — 
not even De Courcel — seemed to have a single care; 
while fear, and the resolve to be rid of the cause of 
fear, seemed to sit within her, over against each 
other, gnawing fiercely at her very life. She envied 
the meanest, barest, and most ignorant of her moun- 
tain escort, a brown stalwart figure prone in the las- 
situde of sleep, secure in his belief in Kismet: What 
is ordained to happen will happen, and it is of no 
avail to struggle against it: it is the will of God. 
That belief made him a Stoic, and he could look 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


269 


even in the face of Death with calm eyes. But she — 
she was a rebel against Kismet: she refused to be- 
lieve that anything was ordained, that there was any 
Fate which could not be avoided by a strong will or 
a subtle contrivance. She had the strong will, but 
where was her subtle contrivance? What could she 
do to give effect to her fierce desire ? 

She was racked with fears, with feeblenesses, 
with impotences ; and she sat on the ground clasping 
her knees, and rocking herself to and fro. While 
in that paroxysm she became aware that the hem of 
her veil was being tugged at. She ceased her rock- 
ing and looked. She saw — and the sight moved 
even Molly, the hardened Molly, to tears — the old 
man who was chief of her escort kneeling on the 
ground and seeking to attract her attention by 
alternately kissing the margin of her veil and 
softly tugging at it. 

“What is it?” she asked. “What is your peti- 
tion?” 

“Be not offended, for I am an old man, the father 
of many children. The Lalla is afflicted !” murmured 
the old fellow. “The lady of my lord weeps and 
rocks to and fro in trouble! Why is her heart 
shaken, and why does she not sleep?” 

Then Molly bethought her of Miss Cameron’s 


270 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


dream or vision, which had, in truth, much impressed 
her; and she resolved to do something for its ful- 
fillment. As thus : — It was as sure as prophecy 
could be that De Courcel and Prince Ali must come 
face to face in the Prince’s Kasbah, but it was much 
to be preferred that De Courcel — as the dream or- 
dained — should appear before the Prince as a pris- 
oner rather than as an equal or a superior — as he 
would if he continued as he was going. How could 
his condition be changed on the march? She put 
the matter thus to the old man : — 

‘^This son of the French travels, you must know, 
to my lord’s Kasbah to join the Sid’ El Helba, who 
makes war on my lord in the Sultan’s behalf. More- 
over, he hopes to ensnare my lord in the toils of 
France. I am troubled and cannot sleep because I 
can see no way to do anything to prevent these 
things.” 

“What does the Lalla wish to do? Let her speak, 
and it shall be done,” said the old man, confidently. 
“Does the Lalla wish this proud Son of the French 
to be made as one of the forgotten ?” 

“Nay,” said Molly, “I do not wish him killed. 
But if by any means we may carry him prisoner to 
my lord, and take from him certain papers which 
concern my lord — he carries them in his wallet or 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


271 


in his bosom — then it would please me well : I should 
cease from trouble and I should sleep.” 

“We are few in number to take prisoners,” said 
the old man : “I and my three.” 

“What is the country we pass through?” asked 
Molly. “Will none of the tribes aid us?” 

“The tribes, O my lady,” answered the old man, 
“would hang back if they were told to make prisoner 
this Son of the French ; for if they but lift a horse- 
shoe from a road over which one of the protected of 
France has travelled, France, they know, makes 
trouble for them with the Sultan. But — it is well 
bethought — we must pass near by Shashan, the home 
of the most holy Shereefs, of whom my lord is chief : 
could a message be sent to them that the lady of my 
lord is on the road and desires them to rescue her 
from the infidel Son of France and to carry him 
prisoner to my lord, doubtless they would mount and 
ride with one accord.” 

“The counsel of the wise is with thee, my friend !” 
said Molly, with gladness. “Let it be done as thou 
sayest. But who shall carry the message ?” 

“That one of my three, O my lady,” said the old 
man, pointing to the prostrate, lithe, and sinewy 
figure which Molly had already taken note of. “He 
is fleet of foot as a wild roe, fleeter than the stallion 
of the sea : he is my son, O my lady.” 


272 THE GEEEH TUKBANS. 

^‘You will give him his message then, my father ?” 
said Molly. 

‘T will give him his message when he wakes; he 
must sleep, for sleep is food to weary limbs. And 
he shall slip out of our company anon, like a snake 
dropped from a basket.” 

And so it was. After their siesta the animals 
were gathered in from their grazing, with much 
shouting the pack-beasts were reloaded, and then 
the whole cavalcade moved forward again with the 
sun burning behind them and heating their backs. 
Molly kept her eye on her escort, and at intervals 
counted them over. She counted again and again, 
and found them all there, and her anxiety made her 
wonder and fear lest the scheme of the old man had 
been abandoned. There came a bit of difficult going, 
and Molly had to give her attention to her mule and 
herself. She had to dip her head to avoid being 
caught up, like Absalom, between earth and heaven, 
and then even the sure-footed mule slithered and 
slipped on the steep path amid rocks down to the bed 
of a brawling stream which they must ford. 

^Tf I were seeking to slip away,” thought Molly 
within herself, ‘‘this is the place I would choose.” 

When next she considered and counted her escort, 
tKere was one missing. Apparently another also 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


273 


had been keeping an eye on her mountain-men; for 
De Courcel rode up to her side in no good humor, 
and said : 

‘Were there not four men of your escort, 
madame? Where is the fourth?” 

“Really, sir,” laughed Molly, “am I the keeper 
of my escort? It would seem I should look after 
them, instead of them looking after me!” 

De Courcel left her, and went to the old man. 
“Son of a mountain-goat,” said he, in anger, “count 
your men. Had you not three with you? Where 
is tbe third ?” 

“Certainly, my lord,” answered the old man, “I 
had three with me. Wah! Wahl Truly,” said he, 
pretending to seek out his fellows with a roaming 
eye, “one is gone! And he is my son! Poor lad, 
he must have been carried away with the stream! 
Wallahy ! Let us go back and search !” 

There came a roar of laughter from all the natives 
who heard; for it was too funny to imagine a 
strapping, active fellow, as each one of the escort 
was, carried away by a brawling stream which was 
nowhere more than a foot deep. 

“Let him go,” said De Courcel, sulkily. “DoubL 
less he will easily find his way back to his father’s 
house. We cannot delay. Zit! Zit!” And so he 
urged all forward again. 


274 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


The day was far spent, and the shadows were 
lengthened before them, when they came to the 
crossing of another awkward stream. As before, 
and as always in that region, the descent to the 
stream was steep, because of the scouring and hol- 
lowing effects of the winter floods. The ascent from 
the stream on the other side was, of course, also 
steep. The first of the pack-animals, abused with 
cries and belabored with blows, were just topping 
the farther bank, against a gully that opened on the 
stream, when the shot of a firelock rang out, and one 
of the mules fell with his burden. Instantly all was 
confusion among beasts and men — mules screaming, 
donkeys braying, and men yelling and cursing in 
the most apt and picturesque Moorish speech. In 
the confusion there rang out from behind loud shouts 
of ^^Allah! Allah!” and those who were still in the 
stream, on looking back, saw two bands of 
horsemen in green turbans ride forth from two 
breaks in the river bank, above and below the ford — 
ride with twirling gun or flashing sabre. 

'Tt is an ambuscade !” cried De Courcel, who had 
just reached the farther brink of the stream. 

He drew his revolver and fired at the leader of the 
party nearest him. But the leader — an active man 
on a black horse — stooped and was almost hid be- 


THE GEEEH TUEBANS. 


27o 


hind the neck of his beast. The revolver-shot must 
have grazed the spirited horse, for he screamed and 
reared. ‘ But his rider brought hiin down with his 
cruel Moorish bit, and set him full tilt at De Courcel. 
The horse tore through the water, and before the 
French cavalier bethought him to take another shot, 
he was caught on the back of the head with the butt 
of the long jezail swung by the lithe brown arm of 
the leader of the Green Turbans. De Courcel col- 
lapsed upon his horse, and slid down to the ground 
on the margin of the stream. The leader of the 
Green Turbans leaped from his saddle, dragged the 
Frenchman away from the water, and set him in a 
sitting posture against a stone. He told one of his 
fellows to keep guard on him, while he turned to see 
how the business of the rest was done. 

The fall of De Courcel put an end to all thought 
of resistance — even had resistance been feasible — 
against a score of horsemen. But, in truth, the na- 
tives who had been ready to serve the Frenchman 
were much more ready to serve the Green Turbans, 
who were all technically, in their view, what we 
should call “gentlemen”; they were all Shereefs, 
descendants of the Prophet, and therefore their per- 
sons were aristocratic and sacred. 

Something like order was induced very speedily, 


276 


THE GEEEH TURBAHS. 


and the cavalcade was led up out of the river-bed. 
Molly and her escort came last, and the old man 
who was chief of her escort brought the leader of 
the Green Turbans to her saddle-bow. He was a 
quick-eyed, intelligent-seeming gentleman, and he 
would have been handsome had he not been so deeply 
marked with smallpox. 

praise Allah,” said the Green Turban, ^That my 
lady has given me the privilege to relieve her of the 
company of the Son of France, and to conduct her 
to the presence of my lord. I accepted in faith the 
message of the young man, else I had not known that 
my lord had yet taken to himself a vdfe, nor known 
that my lord’s Kasbah is occupied by the soldiers of 
the Sultan of Marakesh. But we live without news 
in Shashan. What are the commands of my lady? 
Let her slave hear the music of her voice !” 

Molly spoke in a low voice, while she continued 
veiled. 

'Tt is my desire, O Shereef, that the Son of France 
be carried prisoner to my lord, and that we set for- 
ward with all speed to arrive in his presence. But 
first let me look upon the Frenchman.” 

She pushed forward her mule to the place where 
De Courcel reclined against the rock, still uncon- 


scious. 


THE GKEEN TURBANS. 


377 

‘‘Take his wallet from him,” said she, to the old 
chief of her escort, “and give it to me. And search 
in his bosom if he have papers there.” 

The wallet was taken and handed up to her. And 
then — a small parchment from the man’s inner 
bosom. She barely needed to look at that to be sure 
of its horrid identity. She squeezed it tight in her 
hand under her veil until they were out upon the 
road again; and then she crammed the nauseous 
morsel into her mouth. 

Like the document swallowed by the man in the 
Bible, it was bitter in the mouth, but sweet in the 
stomach. 


278 


.THE GREEN TURBANS. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE DEMON LETTER.; 

And so they rode on ; and Molly felt at peace. De 
Courcel was brought to, and, mounted on his own 
horse with his hands tied behind him, he was led 
forward a well-guarded prisoner, with no chance of 
escape, for he had no friend in all the company. 

Meanwhile, during Molly’s absence, her fate was 
being decided by the relentless march of events. 
Prince Ali had not only the military instincts of all 
his race, he was also a born commander. He saw at 
once the necessity for swift action, and for striking a 
crushing blow before his presence had been suspected. 
He secretly sent out messages to all the tribes of the 
mountains, calling them to arms. He chose from 
among them and those around him two hundred of 
the best shots, and armed them with his new breech- 
loaders, in the use of which they needed little instruc- 


THE GHEl^^ TUIHUXS. 


279 


tion ; and then he confidently set out to make a sudden 
attack upon the invaders. 

AH’s ancestral Kasbah, or castle, was strongly 
placed on a little hill in the midst of a valley. The 
mountains that encircled the valley were much higher 
than the hill, and modern artillery in position on them 
could have pounded the castle to dust in half-an-hour. 
But neither the Sultan’s army nor Ali’s adventurous 
handful had any cannon, and therefore, once held, the 
castle could only be taken by assault or by surprise. 
Ali was not strong enough to attempt assault, and he 
therefore decided for surprise. He concealed his 
men in the caves and among the rocks of a gorge of 
the mountains, and sent out a trusty scout to dis- 
cover the condition of things around the castle. 

After dark, and when the moon had risen, the 
scout was reported by the outposts as coming up the 
glen in company with a woman on an ass. The first 
thought of Ali and the doctor was that it must be 
Molly returned. Yet how should she return that 
way? When the scout and the woman arrived she 
was veiled, and she refused to remove her veil 
until she was alone with Ali and the doctor. 

“Alula!” they both exclaimed, when she did un- 
veil in the moonlight. 

“Yes, sidis,” said she, “it is indeed Alula, and 


280 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


Alula come with a very wicked and shameful in- 
tention. Is it not shameful and wicked for a 
daughter to betray her father? That is what I 
have come for, and I think that, if I were a dutiful 
daughter, I would repent and go away without a 
word of consequence having passed my lips.’’ 

They persuaded her neither the one way nor the 
other, but they asked her how she and her father 
came to be there. She answered that, when Ali’s 
flight was discovered, the Basha set out on his re- 
turn to Morocco. As soon as he reached Tangier, 
he received orders from the Sultan to take command 
of the attack on Ali’s country, and to bring up more 
troops. And there he was now in Ali’s castle. 

“And I came,” said she, plaintively, “to help 
you, sidi, to get your castle back into your own pos- 
session.” 

“To give me the pass-word, perhaps,” said Ali, 
“or to open the gates secretly and by night ?” 

“Yes, sidi,” answered Alula, simply, “both.” 

“It is rather a shameful thing,” said the doctor, 
“to advise a daughter to betray her father.” 

“And,” said she, evidently in great perplexity, 
“though men hate him as a Basha, he is a kind 
father.” 

The doctor thought that she might really repent 


THE GEEEH TURBANS, 


281 


of her intention, and, half-ashamed of himself, he 
sought to persuade her to carry it out. 

‘Tt is said that all is fair in war, as in love.” 

‘Tn war as in love? Yes,” said she; ‘‘but what 
will become of me if I betray him again? He has 
discovered that it was I that released the Sidi Ali 
in London; he will discover this also, if I do it. 
What, then, shall I do ? Where shall I go ?” 

“I promise,” said Ali, “that the Lalla Alula shall 
be protected — that no harm of any kind shall hap- 
pen to her I promise in the name of Allah the Most 
Merciful.” 

Alula gazed at him; that promise seemed scarcely 
to satisfy her. She gazed at the doctor, and her 
expression was full of trouble. There was undoubt- 
edly a burden on her mind. 

“There is another thing,” said she, at length. 
“If I give the Sidi Ali the means of re-entering his 
castle, my father may fall into his hands. I have 
heard the Sidi Ali declare that he would take ven- 
geance on those who were concerned in sending his 
brother to death. Of them the sidi knows that my 
father was one. I beg the sidi of his goodness to 
tell me : Would he kill my father ? Or, would he 
spare him for my sake, and for the sake of what I 
have done, and may do?” 


282 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


All considered a moment, and his brows were 
gathered in a deep fold of debate with himself. He 
looked up with decision. 

^‘For thy sake, my Lalla,” said Ali, *‘he shall be 
spared, he shall be forgiven, unless he should prove 
to be the person who discovered that we were in the 
doctor’s house, and who received the price of my 
brother’s life! That man, whatsoever he is,” cried 
Ali, in such wrath as always swayed him when he 
spoke on the subject, ‘‘shall not be spared! He 
shall surely die !” 

Alula closed her eyes and shuddered. But she 
spoke in a low voice. 

“My father, then, need not die; for well I know 
he is not that man.” 

“How dost thou know?” demanded Ali, quick to 
seize anything that might set him nearer the track of 
the arch-culprit. 

“Because,” answered Alula, after a glance at the 
doctor, and an instant’s hesitation, “I know that all 
that day my father went not out of his hotise.” 

So the subject dropped, and they resumed the 
question of admission to the castle. 

“This night it must be done,” said Alula, “in the 
dead sleep and deep darkness that precede the dawn. 
The pass-word for outposts and sentinels is ‘Sabora.’ 


TIIH GHKKN TURBAxVS. 


283 


Enter the valley as if you came from Tangier. A 
Captain went out to-night to bring in more soldiers 
in the morning. Pretend, that thou art that Cap- 
tain, returned sooner than was expected. Come to 
the great gate. Push it, and it will yield ; and Allah 
be your helper \” 

Her daring mission thus performed. Alula wished 
to be gone. She begged that the doctor should 
accompany her, besides the scout who had brought 
her. As soon as they were well on the way, with 
the scout striding on ahead, it became apparent that 
Alula had another serious purpose in taking the 
dangerous journey to Ali’s hiding-place. 

“Where is Madame Neale?” she asked the doctor, 
in English. (Sometimes she forgot — perhaps, on 
purpose — to give Molly her new name. ) “I did not 
see her with you.” 

The doctor said that she had gone to Tangier and 
Gibraltar on business, and would return in a day 
or two. 

“Let. her not return!” said Alula, with energy. 
“It will be better for her never to be seen again !” 

“But why, Lalla?” asked the doctor, smiling; for, 
divining Alula’s feeling towards Ali, he imagined 
that the advice was prompted merely by childish, 
half-barbarous jealousy. 


284 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


^^Oh, it is an awful thing I have to say, Sidi 
Doctor !” said she, in her excitement falling into her 
Moorish speech. ‘T fear to say it! I fear to hint 
it! I have been wicked, and I am punished by 
guessing what I would not know for all the world !” 

^'Hints? Guesses? What are these childish 
riddles, my Lalla, that frighten you, as if they were 
evil spirits?” 

“They are, Sidi Doctor !” she declared. “Listen ! 
On the very day that I was taken to my father’s 
house in London by Prince Ali’s wife, she opened 
and read to herself a letter in the carriage. She was 
greatly troubled — I could see — by the reading. 
Afterwards I discovered the letter in my bag; her 
hand had mistaken my bag for her own. I was as- 
tonished to see that the outside was superscribed to 
Prince Ali. I took the letter out. I should not have 
done that — it was wicked — but I did it, because I 
hated Madame Neale. I could not read it, because 
it was written in Arabic, and I had not been taught 
to read Arabic. But I kept it, determined to learn 
Arabic in order to read it. She came and asked if 
I had seen it, and I said ‘No.’ I am bitterly sorry 
I did that. I have learned to read Arabic a little, and 
I have read a few words of the letter. But I will 
read no more. It is a demon letter. It gives me 


THE GKEExNT TUKBANS. 


285 


horrible dreams. I beg the Sidi Doctor to take the 
letter from me, and do with it what seems to him 
good !” 

She took from her bosom and handed over the 
letter we know of. The doctor took it in silence 
and astonishment. Then she begged him to leave 
her that she might pass on her way more rapidly 
with the scout alone; for the bare-legged moun- 
taineer could walk fast enough to keep pace with the 
trot of the ass. 

The doctor, therefore, halted and let her go on 
as rapidly as her beast would permit. He wrapped 
his Moorish cloak close about him and drew the 
hood well over his head, and lay down under a 
strong-scented lentisk bush to await the return of the 
scout His curiosity urged him to read the extraor- 
dinary letter which had been handed over to him. 
The moonlight was not strong enough to enable him 
to read; but, fortunately, he was still Englishman 
enough to carry matches. Crouching well under 
the bush, completely secure from the gentle atten- 
tions of the breeze that wandered about the moun- 
tains, he set himself to scratch his matches and to 
read the letter. 

He noted the address on the envelope to Prince 
Ali ; and then, with amazement and horror, he read 
the Arabic, of which the translation is as follows : 


286 


THE GEEEH TUKBANS. 


^'Praise to the One God. 

''There is no strength nor power hut in God 'Al- 
mighty, the Most High, 

"In consideration of the service which I have ren- 
dered to His Shereehan Highness the Sultan by re- 
vealing to him the present dwelling-place of the 
notorious rebel Mohammed, Grand Shereef and 
Prince of Tetuan, I acknowledge to have received 
from the Imperial Treasury the sum of one hundred 
and twenty-five thousand francs.'^ 

That was dated and signed in English : 

"Fe2, April 24th, 189 — . Mary Neale.” 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


287 


CHAPTER XXVIL 

HOW ALI WON HIS HOME AGAIN. 

“It is a forgery!’^ the doctor exclaimed, angrily, 
to himself. 

It was incredible that Molly Neale should have 
committed so detestable a crime. Besides, the signa- 
ture was not in her hand, and the paper on which 
the extraordinary receipt was written was plainly of 
English make. Was it likely that English paper 
was to be had in the Imperial neighborhood where 
this was supposed to be written ? And, if it were a 
forgery, what hand but a French one could have per- 
petrated it, for who but a Frenchman would think 
of naming a sum of Moorish money in francs? 

Yet reflection gave him pause. Was it likely, if 
an original document of that sort existed, that it 
would be passing about in London from hand to 
post, and from post to hand? Might it not, then, 
be a copy? If it were a copy, who made it? and for 


288 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


what purpose? The answer to these questions sug- 
gested themselves readily. De Courcel was its most 
likely maker and sender, and Ali was intended to be 
Its receiver. Its purpose was to ruin Molly in Ali^s 
eyes — in her husband’s eyes, for at the date stamped 
on the envelope Molly was married. The doctor 
trembled to think what terrible issue there might 
have been had Ali received it, and he trembled still 
more to conceive what would happen should Ali 
read the document now, or should the revelation 
made in it be conveyed to him by word of mouth. 
Who could do that? He did not know; but if the 
guesses he had been making were well founded, then 
De Courcel could, and probably the Basha El Helba 
could. Also Alula could now, but in all likelihood 
she would not. 

Thus, by a process of shrewd induction, the doctor 
arrived at almost all the truth. But he did not yet 
accept it as truth. He had a mind to tear the 
document up there and then and scatter the pieces on 
the wild mountain side, or, better still, to light an- 
other match and burn it. 

But he caught sight of the returning scout footing 
it up the glen ; and he folded the paper away, with 
the resolution that he would show it to Molly, and 
if it represented a terrible truth, he would warn her 


THE GEEEH TURBANS. 


289 


of the extreme danger which threatened her. She 
might make light of it to herself if she thought of it 
at all ; but it was like a deadly sword hung over her 
by a hair. 

As the scout approached from the lower ground, 
Ali and his sharpshooters appeared from the higher 
— Ali himself, in his white woollen Moorish cloak, 
looking in the moonlight like a stalking ghost — 
and so the doctor had to suppress debate with him- 
self concerning the Arabic document, and fall in 
with the attention which Ali and the rest were giving 
to the conduct of this midnight expedition. They 
had to make a long detour or curve behind the moun- 
tains that girt the valley and back again, so as to 
appear to the Basha’s outposts and sentinels as if 
they had come from the direction of Tangier. That 
would take them some hours, and they had begun 
betimes. 

Ali and his venturesome two hundred trudged on 
for hours by mountain ways that were no more than 
goat-tracks. When they were arrived at the point 
where they meant to return towards the valley, a 
scout came racing back with the news that there 
was a large party of armed Moors — some hundred 
or two — lying at a spot by which they would have 
to pass if they continued on their way. Since that 


390 


THE GEEEH TURBANS. 


party might be the one which Alula had declared a 
Captain had gone out to assemble, it was advisable 
not only to avoid them, but to get ahead of them. 
Therefore, another detour was necessary. But Ali 
had the advantage of knowing every step of that 
ground, and every bush and rock that might afford 
concealment. So they advanced without hesitation 
and with forced speed; and at length, while it was 
yet dark, they arrived in the valley with a fair road 
before them. They did not try to avoid outposts, 
for that might have aroused suspicion. The first 
guards they came upon were grouped about a fire 
(the night was cold), and to keep themselves awake 
they were reciting, turn and turn about, verses from 
the Koran. 

‘'Who goes there?’' challenged the only member 
of the party who was erect and truly on guard, lean- 
ing on his long gun. 

“The Captain who passed out hours ago to bring 
more men,” said Ali. 

“Give the word.” 

“Sabora.” 

“Pass on. Captain and men; and Allah be with 
you !” 

It was well that the challenger was drowsy and 
careless, and that the rest of the sleepy guards 


fTHE GEEEISr TUEBANS. 


291 


scarcely turned the tail of an eye upon them; for 
Ali’s manner and appearance were little like those 
of a Moorish Kaid, and his hardy mountaineers, 
notwithstanding that they had drawn the hoods of 
their cloaks well over their heads, could never be 
mistaken by watchful eyes either for Arabs or for 
the riff-raff that composes the bulk of the Sultan's 
army. So Ali and his men hastened on. The in- 
dividual sentinels that they came upon gave them 
no trouble. Sometimes they were alseep with their 
knees drawn up to their chins, and they were always 
drowsy. They glanced at Ali and his company with- 
out challenge, and with complete unconcern. These 
men, they probably thought, who were moving 
through the night, must have satisfied the guards of 
the outpost, and, therefore, their passage must be 
quite regular; and even if it were not, it was no 
affair of theirs, and sleep was better than exertion. 
Such are the ways of Moorish military discipline ! 

The valley was about four miles long and less than 
half as broad, and the castle towered up in the midst 
of it. Down the whole length of the valley flowed 
a stream which had been filled with the October 
rains, and along both banks the nondescript Imperial 
army was encamped, using the stream as drinking- 
trough, washbasin, bath, kitchen-sink and sewer. Ali 


293 


THE GEEEiS^ THEBANS. 


and his men kept clear of the stream and clear of the 
camp, clear of all but its ragged and frayed margin, 
which it was impossible to avoid. But they passed 
steadily on, unchallenged, unmolested. They were 
within half a mile or so of the castle when the noise 
of a hubbub rolled up behind them. There was the 
steady roar and roll of angry voices, out of which’ 
rose frequently sharp outcries. The fear seized AH 
and his company that the real Captain with his re- 
cruits might have appeared, and that the noise might 
come from the pursuit of the impostors. 

‘Torward!” murmured Ali. ‘‘But with steady 
feet! Fear not!’' 

But there came a setback that nearly caused a 
panic among the mountaineers, for it is a very dif- 
ficult thing to remain cool and courageous in face of 
an unexpected hindrance, while a ruthless enemy is 
probably raging up behind. When they approached 
the castle they saw that water from the stream had 
been let into an old and hitherto empty channel, so 
that the castle was now partly surrounded by a moat, 
over which a rude drawbridge of rough planks had 
been cast. The drawbridge was raised. They 
could, doubtless, cross the moat without its aid ; but 
to do that would arouse suspicion if they should be 
seen, and cause the gate to be barred against them. 


THE GREE^" TURBANS. 


293 


They must demand that the drawbridge should be 
lowered, whatever parley and delay might be pro- 
voked. 

Ali passed round the word among his men to lie 
down flat on the ground, where their shapes in the 
darkness would be confounded with the scrub-bushes. 
Then he stepped forward with the doctor and one 
of the mountaineers and hailed the porters of the 
bridge. 

‘‘Holla! Ho! Bridge!’^ 

The two cloaked figures that crouched asleep, one 
on each side of the raised bridge, bestirred them- 
selves, and Ali called again. 

“Who calls ?” came back. “It is ordered that the 
bridge shall not be lowered till dawn. The Basha 
has said it, and, by the beard of the Prophet, our 
right hands would be chopped off if we dared to 
disobey.'’ 

Ali put forward then no pretence of being the re- 
turned Captain, for he guessed that, although that 
pretence was good enough to pass the outposts, it 
would not avail for admission to the castle, where 
the recruits were not likely to be welcomed. He 
tried another device. 

“Dolts," he cried, “and sons of dolts! Listen! 
Do you not hear the growing turmoil behind us? 


294 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


We have news, news of moment for the Basha. The 
arch-rebel, Ali of Tetuan, has returned! What do 
you think the Basha will do to you if you do not 
admit the bearers of great news? He will cut your 
stupid heads off ! I command you to lower then, at 
once, or death and Gehenna will be your portion 

And the bridge was lowered. Ali and the doctor 
and the mountaineer passed over. Ali and the 
Berber amazed the porters by falling upon them and 
tying them up in their cloaks, while the doctor ran 
forward to push open the great gate, and the moun- 
taineers (according to arrangement) rushed from 
their cover, and swarmed ovfer the bridge and 
through the gate. Not a shot was fired, and but one 
man was killed — he was the only guard awake, and 
he was cut down with a sword — and the castle was 
in the hands of its rightful master. 

The day had well dawned before those outside the 
castle gave any sign of surprise or suspicion. It 
was unusual that the great gate remained closed 
and the drawbridge raised; but that was not the 
affair of those encamped in the valley. It was likely 
that the Basha knew what he was about ; it was even 
possible that he had overslept himself. But when 
the returned Captain came to report to the Basha, 
and saw guarding the raised drawbridge, not Moor- 


THE GKEEN TUBBAKS. 


295 


ish soldiers at all, but stalwart and fierce Berbers 
who threatened to fire upon him, he fled and carried 
the news to the camp. 

Then there came a great array of men, a mob of 
infantry in all kinds of dresses and with all sorts 
of weapons and horsemen tearing about at break- 
neck speed upon fine Arab horses, with cloaks of all 
gay colors flying behind them like banners in the 
wind. They flung up their guns and caught them 
again or twirled them round their heads, yelling: 
‘‘Allah! Allah!” or each his individual battle-cry. 
“Room for the son of the black hero!” “Hassan! 
Hassan !” “Way there for the two black brothers !” 
“Room for the six-fingered champion, that can shoot 
standing!” That is the wild Moorish notion of 
cavalry display; which bears more resemblance to 
circus-riding than to warfare. These all worked 
gradually forward with a great noise. Their lead- 
ers rode up to the drawbridge and demanded to see 
the Basha El Helba. Ali showed himself above 
the gate. 

“The Basha El Helba,” he answered, in a loud 
voice, “is my prisoner — he and all that were here 
with him ! I am Ali of Tetuan, the lord of this place ! 
I have taken it from the Basha, and I mean to 
keep it !” 


296 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


That was all. The leaders retired to consult with 
their fellows, and then, with renewed noise, with 
thumping of drums and blowing of shrill fifes, they 
flung themselves forward to attack. But long before 
they reached the ditch, or moat, the breechloaders in 
the hands of the Berber sharpshooters behind the 
wall spoke with a continuous rattle. The Moors 
fell by scores ; and the mob fell back in dismay — for 
Moorish soldiers expect guns to make a good deal of 
noise, but not to do much damage. 

The attack failed, and so did other attacks. For 
two days Ali thus held his castle against the 
Moorish army. But his ammunition was running 
short, and he prayed that the tribes he was expecting 
would come speedily in their thousands, bringing 
with them the cases he had been compelled to leave 
behind. 

On the third day they came. They poured down 
into the valley with incredible fury, and swept the 
Sultan's horsemen and riff-raff out, and seized the 
whole of the Moorish camp and supplies. 

They brought with them, not only the cases of 
ammunition, but twenty Green Turbans from 
Shashan, who had with them as prisoner the notable 
Son of France, and also Molly, the wife of the 
Grand Shereef, returned triumphant from her trip tp 


THE GKEEN TUKBANS. 


297 


Tangier and Gibraltar. Her husband, the Prince, 
came down to the gate, a proud and handsome figure, 
lifted her from her ass, and embraced her before 
them all. 


298 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE DOCTOR QUESTIONS MOLLY. 

Dr. Neale sought an interview at the earliest pos- 
sible moment with Molly, the Princess Ali. He 
shrank from it with dread and something like horror, 
and yet he was drawn towards it with an overpower- 
ing curiosity and fascination. Molly could not (he 
declared to himself) be guilty; but if, by that extra- 
ordinary influence which impels poor human nature 
to do those things which it ought not to do — if she 
were guilty! — Heavens! what would come of it, in 
that savage land, away among people of unbridled 
passions, who were a law unto themselves ? He re- 
membered that Ali had shown himself during his 
stay in England and since gentle and amenable; but 
he did not forget his terrible outbursts of passion in 
Fez, and nothing would ever convince him that Ali 
was not, beneath the surface, still a barbarian. 

‘‘Molly,” said he, almost running against her in 
the beautiful pillared aisle of the great central court-* 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 299 

yard, “I want to speak to you alone — and very par- 
ticularly.’’ 

^'Sir/’ said she, in mock regal tones — she was in 
excellent spirits — “do you not respect my position ?” 

“Madame!’’ said he, bowing low. “Princess! 
Will you condescend to grant me the favor of a pri- 
vate interview?” 

He meant his tone to be light, but it was serious 
in spite of his intention; and there was a look in 
his eye which sobered Molly and gave her pause. 

“Come this way,” said she. 

They entered a delicately-tinted, beautifully- 
cushioned little room, which Molly had chosen to 
be especially her own. She sat down among her 
cushions, and motioned Dr. Dick to sit also. Her 
eyes roved around in speculation, yet ever returned 
to consider his serious face. His hand went to the 
decorated pouch which was slung over his Moorish 
tunic, and Molly’s eyes followed the movement. He 
took a letter from the pouch, and handed it to her. 

“Don’t upset yourself when you see it,” said he, 
gently; “but I would like you to tell me what you 
know of that, if you will be so good.” 

Molly recognized the envelope; recognized, too, 
the paper which the envelope contained. It was a 
terrible, a deadly, moment. She had imagined the 


300 


THE GREEH TURBANS. 


horrible document lost in London beyond recall, 
and — with its original destroyed, eaten, by herself — 
she had felt free altogether from the damning evi- 
dence of her crime, for, if she were put to it, she 
could deny that it had ever existed. Now here was 
the terrible accuser risen up in judgment against her 
again. 

'‘Where did you get it?’' she asked, with a look 
of death upon her face. 

"It came into my hands quite lately,” answered 
the doctor. "I don’t think I am at liberty to say 
where I got it.” 

"Has — Ali seen it?” The question was wrung 
out of her with pain. 

The doctor was becoming involved in the horrid 
fear that the paper might be genuine. He could not 
look at her. 

"I don’t think so,” he answered. "At any rate, 
I have not shown it to him, and I think if he had 
seen it, he’d have let us know !” He said that with 
significant emphasis, and Molly shuddered. "I had 
hoped, Molly,” he continued, sorrowfully and pain- 
fully, "that you would have declared the paper a 
shameful forgery. But you don’t. What must I 
think?” 

Molly flung herself among her beautiful silk 


THE GKEEN TUKBAiNS. 


301 


cushions, and sobbed and wept as if her heart would 
break. 

^Ht is true, then?” he asked, in a low, clear tone. 
For answer she only sobbed and wept more violently. 

The doctor paced softly up and down on the 
shining tiled pavement — softly, because he was shod 
with the ordinary Moorish slippers. There was no 
sound for some time but the shuffling and the flap of 
these yellow things and the subdued sob that came 
from the cushions. The doctor was in such a situa- 
tion as he had never known before, such a situation 
as mortal man seldom finds himself in. A charming 
woman — his brother’s wife (he should say, widow) 
— had proved herself a criminal of the most abhor- 
rent kind ; and the secret of her crime was with him ! 
What should he do? What could he do? What 
could any man do with the ordinary tender and 
chivalrous regard of an Englishman for a lady? 
And had he not always held her and treated her as 
his sister? What could he do but put away all evi- 
dence of the crime as a shameful thing? 

''Give me the thing, Molly,” he said, holding out 
his hand. 

She turned to him piteously, with the paper tightly 
clenched between her fingers. "You will not betray 
me, Dick? Say you won’t!” 


302 


THE GEEEH TURBANS. 


won’t betray you !” he answered, shaking him- 
self almost contemptuously, and that in spite of him- 
self. ‘T’m going to burn the thing !” He lit a match, 
and held both the paper and the envelope till they 
were consumed to the last corner, and his fingers 
were scorched. 

‘^Oh, thank you, Dick !” she cried. ^Thank you !” 
and she seized his hand and kissed it. 

‘‘O, Molly, Molly, Molly!” he broke out, ‘^how 
could you do it ? How could you sell the life of the 
good, brave young man?” 

'T don’t know!” she moaned. ‘T don’t know, 
Dick!” 

'Tt was the crime of Judas !” he went on, growing 
in passion and expression. “And he had the grace 
to go out and hang himself afterwards !” 

“You are very hard on me !” said she. 

“You were my brother’s wife at the time,” he con- 
tinued, “and my guest. I suppose you understand 
that your act brought death to your husband as 
well?” 

“Yes,” she confessed, “oh, yes ! But you don’t — 
you can’t — ^understand. I was very poor, and I 
never had any money. I was ambitious, and I never 
could do anything I wanted to do!” 

“Well, by Jove!” he exclaimed, with bitterness, 


THE GEEEN TUKBANS. 


303 


‘^you’ve not been without money since ! You made a 
good haul : ten thousand pounds for the two ! And 
you’ve made a fine show! I suppose that’s what 
women live for !” 

“I deserve,” said she, humbly, ^That you should 
say such things to me ! But I have spent very little 
of the money!” 

“Heavens!” he exclaimed, turning about more 
fully towards her, “I suppose the five thousand 
pounds’ worth of money you’ve brought from Gib- 
raltar for Ali is some of it?” 

She did not answer. 

“My God !” he cried, pacing up and down again, 
“if Ali should know that he has in his hand part of 
the price of his brother’s life !” 

“You won’t tell him?” she exclaimed, in the 
wildest alarm. 

“I won’t tell him!” said he. “But my advice to 
you — if I may offer it — is : Go away at once, back 
to England — anywhere — out of sight and reach of 
Ali ! Flee from him, as you would from death !” 

“I don’t want to flee from death,” she answered, 
boldly, “if death be my husband.” 

“I don’t think,” said he, looking at her in some 
surprise, “that you fully understand your position. 
I have the firmest presentiment that it will all come 


304 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


out ! That,” said he, suddenly remembering a point 
which he had intended to mention before, ‘That is 
only a copy, surely, that I have just burnt?” 

‘Tt is,” she answered: “a copy made by De 
Courcel, to ruin me with Ali !” 

“Then there is an original?” 

“There is not now ; it is gone, too.” 

“Are you quite certain of that?” 

“Quite. I ate it. I thought it was burnt.” 

“By whom?” 

“By De Courcel.” 

“Still that confounded French spy!” exclaimed 
the doctor. “I thought he was at the bottom of the 
shameful business!” 

“You are mistaken, Dick,” answered Molly. “He 
had nothing to do with it. He knew of it; and he 
has used his knowledge against me ever since, to get 
me to do what he wished — especially to prevail on 
Ali to be a French subject.” 

“And you have not done what he wished?” ex- 
claimed the doctor. “Depend upon it, he will betray 
you yet. He’s a scoundrel, and he won’t forgive! 
I repeat my advice : Go away, and hide where neither 
Ali nor De Courcel can find you !” 

“Oh, you don’t understand !” broke out Molly, in 
a great wave of feeling. “You won’t understand! 


THE GREEN TUEBANS. 


305 


I love m}^ husband — love him beyond everything! 
And that is now my great punishment! My life is 
bound up with him, and I cannot cut myself off from 
him ! If he cuts me off, I cannot help it I If he kills 
me, I will still love him! I care nothing now for 
money or for position ! I care for nothing now but 
him ! And I will not go away 

The doctor listened with amazement. He was 
not in love himself, and he did not understand. 

'Tn that case, my dear/’ was all he could say, 
“God help your 

Dr. Dick left her. He was perplexed, oppressed, 
and helpless. He hoped against hope that Ali might 
never know the terrible secret; but he feared that 
somehow it would come out. He thought it was a 
terrible, a monstrous thing, that Molly could have 
ever married Ali, and a more monstrous thing that 
she should continue to live with him. Yet what 
could he do to prevent it, since Molly would not 
take his advice? He could not conceive it to be hi$ 
duty to denounce her, and bring upon her the ven- 
geance of her husband. 

But, for all that, vengeance was advancing upon 
Molly, and with neither slow nor halting foot. And 
it is a terrible fact that its action was precipitated 
by the mean and treacherous suggestion which 
Molly herself had made to Ali in Scotland. 


306 


THE GEEEN TUEBANS. 


At the close of the day — just as Miss Cameron 
Had dreamed — Prince Ali called his prisoner De 
Courcel from his confinement. 

''Ah, mon Prince,” said the Frenchman, expecting 
a friendly greeting, "I desire to congratulate you on 
your return to your ancestral chateau.” 

He was dumbfounded by the Prince’s response to 
his politeness. 

"Traitor — dog — spy of a Frenchman!” cried Ali, 
in a sudden blaze of wrath. "Now thou art in the 
power of those hands ! Now will I know who sold 
my brother’s life! It may be that thou thyself art 
the traitor ! But whoever he be, thou shalt tell me, 
or I will cut the secret from thy heart!” 


,THE GREEN TURBANS. 


307 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

DE COURCEL EXPLAINS. 

Molly and Alula were both present at that scene, 
in the background. Alula, when she head Ali’s 
passionate address to De Courcel, uttered a scream, 
but clapped her hand upon it when half-emitted. 
Molly made no sound, but she turned deathly white. 
Too well did she remember that occasion in the 
Highlands of Scotland when, fearing what De 
Courcel might say to Ali, she subtly suggested that 
the Frenchman himself was probably the betrayer of 
Mohammed. Now she felt — she foresaw— that the 
treacherous suggestion she had let loose would turn 
for her own destruction. 

‘T ask nothing better, my Prince,” said De 
Courcel, in English. He spoke with spirit, for, 
whatever his defects, he was no coward. '‘With 
pleasure I will tell you who is the person that sold 
your brother's life. Your Highness cannot forget 


308 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


that once I offered to give what you now demand. 
But your Highness then would not listen ; you com- 
manded me not to speak. I said : ‘Well, I wait, and 
am silent until I give my proofs; my evidences, my 
pieces of justification.’ I am ready, my Prince. 
But, you will excuse me, this courtyard, open to all 
the world, is not a proper place for the hearing. Let 
me be heard in your council hall, if you please, my 
Prince.” 

That was said carelessly, almost sarcastically, and 
the Prince’s sole reply was to turn and lead the way 
in. So they passed from the open court with its 
plashing fountain to the hall of audience and council. 
Ali was in an unusual state of excitement and 
solemnity at the prospect of discovering at last what 
he had so long desired to know. He marched in with 
his head erect and his eyes forward, and he seated 
himself on the divan that was along one side of the 
room, in his usual place of audience and judgment. 
He did not note who else was in the room, but kept 
his eyes fixed upon the Frenchman. 

De Courcel looked around him. He saw only 
the two stalwart Berber guards that stood at his 
elbows, and the reassembled household of Shereefs 
and notables who counted it their privilege and their 
3uty to attend upon their Grand Shereef and Prince. 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


309 


Dr. Neale still lingered without, to urge a last 
desperate word of counsel upon Molly. 

'‘You must see what is coming,” he said. “Don’t 
go in; keep away. Hide anywhere out of his sight. 
He will be at the first like a madman. We may 
bring him round later.” 

Molly knew too well that by “he” the doctor 
meant her husband. 

“I won’t go away,” she said, as she had said 
before. “He may kill me, but I will keep near 
him.”^ 

Fear, the weakness of nature, dragged her feet 
back ; but resolution, the strength of the mind, pushed 
her forward. She entered the hall, and the doctor 
followed in a turmoil of uncertainty and horror. 

^^BienT murmured De Courcel, when he saw 
Molly appear. 

Molly boldly went forward and took her seat by 
the Prince as his consort. The Shereefs scowled at 
such forwardness, but Molly, even in her despera- 
tion, would not abandon an Englishwoman’s right 
to be regarded as her husband’s equal. Alula stood 
a long way off, and dared hardly peep in at the 
arched doorway. 

“Let the Captain De Courcel now speak,” said 
Ali. “Ilisten.” 


310 


THE GEEEN THEBANS. 


“If the Basha El Helba is in the castle, my Prince, 
as I have heard he is,’' said the Frenchman, “let him 
be called in, if it please you.” 

There was an anxious pause till the Basha ap- 
peared, guarded by two big negro slaves with drawn 
swords. He looked anxious and furtive like a 
trapped thief ; but he had more of the goat’s appear- 
ance than ever, of a goat that has had a beating and 
whose lip trembles half in fear, half in derision. He 
appeared surprised, and then troubled, to see De 
Courcel there, and it was plain he wondered what 
was afoot — his own trial or the Frenchman’s? 

“The Basha El Helba,” said De Courcel, begin- 
ning to speak in Moorish, ‘"knows this matter as well 
as I. I will make my. statement,” he continued, very 
much in the manner of a French Public Prosecutor, 
“and the Basha will contradict me if I am wrong.” 

“Let the truth only be spoken,” said Ali, severely, 
“and beware of all false accusation.” 

“The truth only shall be spoken, sidi,” said De 
Courcel. “In Fez,” he began, “on a certain day 
six months ago, a woman rode through the dust 
and heat of the city to the Palace of his Shereefian 
Highness the Sultan. Many men saw her and knew 
who she was, for she was unveiled. She was am 
Englishwoman.” 


THE GREElSr TURBANS. 


311 


Ali began to give a more rigid attention. 

“She inquired the way — I heard her — to the 
house of the Sid’ El Helba, who was then at the 
head of the Sultan’s domestic affairs, and with whom 
I had the honor of being friendly. She was admitted 
into the house of the Sid’ El Helba. I was still 
standing in the same place, thinking of the singular 
coming of the Englishwoman at that hour of the 
day, when a messenger came to me from the Sid’ El 
Helba asking me to go and have a word with him. 
I appeal to the Basha. Is not that true?” 

“It is true,” said the Basha, “as the words of 
childhood. I did send for you to come, and you 
came.” 

“The Sid’ El Helba,” continued De Courcel, “re- 
ceived me in his private closet and spoke quickly. 
He told me that there had come to him a daughter 
of the English with a most important secret to sell, 
but she would not impart it until she saw before her 
the promised sum in English or French banknotes 
and gold. He begged me to take an order on the 
Sultan’s Treasury to the Jewish banker Aaron, who 
is a French-protected subject, and get English or 
French money from him, and to use my European 
eyes to ensure that the money was true. Is that not 
so ?” asked De Courcel, turning to the Basha, 


312 


THE GEEEN TURBAN^S. 


‘Tt IS as the Captain has stated/' said the Basha. 

‘‘Proceed, proceed,” said AH, “and come to the 
matter. All this is not to the purpose.” 

“I went to Aaron and returned with the money, 
.and counselled the Sid’ El Helba fo demand the 
signature of the woman to a document acknowledg- 
ing the receipt of the money. He took counsel with 
me as to the form of that, and revealed to me that 
the woman had promised that the arch-rebel, Mo- 
hammed, the Grand Shereef and Prince of Tetuan, 
should be in the Sultan’s hands that night.” 

“Proceed!” said Ali, with one hand plucking at 
his red beard. “Who was the woman?” 

“Permit me, my Prince,” said De Courcel, “to tell 
you what happened in its order. At the request of 
the Sid’ El Helba I drew up a receipt in the Arabic 
language. It was set before the woman ” 

De Courcel paused; plainly his nerve had gone. 
Ali had not taken his eyes from him for an instant 
since he had begun to speak. He had assumed more 
and more a forward crouching and threatening 
position as of a beast preparing to spring. 

“And she set her name to it, you would say !” he 
cried, when the Frenchman paused. “What name? 
What name?” he yelled, leaping to his feet and 
brandishing his fists. 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


313 


The Frenchman was speechless. He stood amazed 
and terror-stricken, as if he conceived that AH had 
gone mad. 

‘‘What name?’’ he cried again. He suddenly 
leaped forward and seized De Courcel with both 
hands and shook him. “Dog ! Liar ! Lying son of 
a lying people ! Thou torturest me with thy words, 
and now thou wouldst torture me with thy silence! 
what name?” 

“Mary NeaUr 

But De Courcel did not utter it. He could not 
have uttered it so clearly as it sounded. It was not 
evident who had uttered it; it seemed as if the name 
suddenly lived in the empty air, and that was all. 
But the name provoked Ali to a frenzy. He still 
maintained his hold of the Frenchman, who was as 
a rag doll in his hands. 

“Traitor! Torturer!” he cried. “Thou shalt 
prove it! Thou shalt show me the paper! Show 
me the name, or I will tear you all to pieces !” 

He flung the Frenchman on the tiled floor, and 
he would have stamped on him in his fury, had not * 
Dr. Neale and some of the Shereefs dashed forward, 
restrained Ali, and borne the Frenchman out uncon- 
scious. 

“Let all go forth,” said a clear voice, “and leave 

Prince Ali with me/' 


314 


THE GREEK- TIJRBAI^S. 


It was Molly who spoke. She stood erect and 
rigid by the dais, and waited till the hall was clear 
and she was alone with her husband. When they 
were alone, but several paces apart, they gazed for 
some seconds each in the face of the other, then 
Molly’s eyes dropped and her head hung. 

'*Why dost thou veil thy bright eyes and hang 
thy fair head ?” asked Ali, in a mournful and desolatO 
voice. ‘'Art thou that woman the French spy spokei 
of? Art thou the wicked woman that sold my 
dear brother to his cruel enemies?” • 

She made a gesture of entreaty and of desire to 
go near him. 

“Stand away !” he cried, holding up his hand and 
violently motioning her back. “Come not near! 
Thou art to me but a loathsome toad, a poisonous 
serpent that I have for some months cherished in 
my boson — if thou art that woman! Answer me!” 
he cried, with a stamp. “Art thou the woman?” 

Again she hung her head. 

“Confession is in that,” he said. “Allah be my 
witness, but I must believe confession is in that.” 

“I have long bitterly, bitterly repented,” said 
Molly. “Canst thou not forgive me, Ali ?” 

“Forgive?” he cried. “When Allah shall forgive 
the demons of Gehenna, then may I forgive thee, 
the betrayer of innocent blood !” 


THE GEEEK TURBANS. 


315 


^^Then,” said she, as if her last hope were going, 
^'you love me no more?” 

‘‘Love thee?” he cried. “I loathe thee! And if 
I loved thee, is the common love of thee — a woman ! 
— to be set against the sacred love of my brother, 
who was to me more beautiful than all women ?” 

“Enough I” said she, looking on him with deadly 
calm. “If you love me not, there is no more for 
me.” 

“Ask me not for pity !” he cried. 

“Pity?” she cried, with stung pride. “Thou art 
a barbarian to speak of pity! Pity is for animals. 
I am thy wife, thy equal! If tliere is no hope that 
thou mayest forgive — I have sinned terribly, mon- 
strously ! I repent bitterly, with tears that sear my 
heart ; but if there can be no forgiveness with thee, 
I have finished. My life is nothing to me without 
thy love, Ali. Kill me, but do not rail.” 

She glanced at him and abandoned hope; the 
fever of hatred and vengeance was burning in his 
eyes and trembling in his fingers. 

He clenched his hands together. “True,” said 
he, “railing is of no avail. A man does not scold 
a beast that must be destroyed. I cannot lay hands 
on thee to take thy life, because — because I have 
embraced thee in love. Thou shalt die by other hands 
than mine. Thou shalt be driven forth. Hal” 


316 


THE GEEEN TUKBANS. 


He paused and sniffed the air, which flowed freely 
in from the courtyard from the open valley. The 
breeze, as it wandered in, brought a strange odor, an 
odor as from a menagerie of wild beasts or as from 
a herd of filthy he-goats — an odor which, at its 
faintest, was like that of a crowd of negroes. With 
the odor there was borne on the wind a droning or 
humming sound, with intermittent yells. 

‘^The Aissowie!’’ murmured AH, with a kind of 
awe, and strode to the door, leaving his wife stand- 
ing. 


,THE GKEEN TUEBANS. 


Sir 


CHAPTER XXX. 

THE AISSOWIE. 

The Aissowie are known all over the land of the 
Moors, from Tangier to Marakesh. They are a 
fanatical sect of Mohammedans who claim to have 
the special protection and inspiration of God. They 
are something like the whirling and howling Der- 
vishes of the farther East, something also like the 
Shakers of this country and America. They believe 
in a life of prayer and of possession by the spirit; 
and they dance and whirl together to promote in 
each other the religious ecstasy, while they slash 
themselves with knives, and eat iron and glass, to 
show that they are proof against harm since they are 
protected by Heaven. Their centre is at Fez, where 
they have a great mosque for worship, and from 
thence their saints and preachers, their leaders and 
captains, make yearly pilgrimages throughout the 
land to encourage the brotherhood and to win 
recruits. 

Word had been brought to Ali the day before 


318 


THE GEEEN TURBANS. 


that the Aissowie were coming, and that they would 
visit the castle to pay their respects to the Grand 
Shereef, who, from his high position among Moham- 
medans, is an honorary head of the brotherhood. 
They were come, a filthy, evil-smelling band, and 
they provoked an idea in All’s frenzied brain. 

The drawbridge was down, the great gate was 
open, and the saints of God, as they called them- 
selves, came in, swaying and moaning, chanting and 
yelling, in their religious fever. .They were a 
closely-packed crowd ; and at first nothing much was 
apparent but a waving mass of hooded heads, amid 
which shone some shaven skulls, cut and bleeding. 
But as they pressed into the great courtyard, a certain 
regularity in the movement of the heads became 
manifest. They broke into a double throng to en- 
compass the fountain, they formed a circle about the 
fountain, and they formed also an outer circle which 
came slowly whirling towards Ali, the Grand 
Shereef, who stood plainly visible in his white cloak 
and green turban. They swayed rhythmically, but 
the rhythm and accord were in their spirits, for they 
were not in the sounds they uttered. 

‘‘Brothers,” called Ali, in a loud voice, “there is 
a traitor in this house ! Find the traitor ! There is 
a seller of innocent blood! Find the seller!” 


THE GEEEH TUEBAHS. 


319 


iTfie whirling circles took up the words, and in a 
tnoaning chant repeated them: ‘There is a traitor 
in this house ! Brothers, find the traitor ! There is 
a seller of innocent blood ! Brothers, find the seller 
And they continued to whirl and sway faster and 
faster and to moan and cry louder and louder. 

The whole household of the castle stood around, 
fixed like stocks and stones with terror and fascina- 
tion; for these evil-smelling, but saintly, Aissowie, 
being possessed by the Divine Spirit, were believed 
to be able to detect, to “smell out,’’ all kinds of evil- 
doing and treachery. It became a grotesque but 
terrible game, as of blindman’s buff, terrible because 
of the terror of the spectators, who stood trembling, 
and allowed themselves to be pawed and breathed 
over by the nauseous, horrible creatures whom they 
imagined to be filled with the Spirit of God. 

“Find, brothers! Find!” 

With their heads swaying backwards and for- 
wards, stepping in cadence, holding each other by 
the hand, the arm, or the shoulder, and maintaining 
a low, angry murmur, broken by groans and sighs 
and agonized cries of “Allah! Allah!” they passed 
round. 

They encouraged each other to renewed exertion, 
and became more and more fierce and distracted. 


320 


THE GEEEH TIJEBAHS. 


And, as tfiey failed to find, they would burst all to- 
gether into a shrill and deadly cry as of mortal 
terror, and then they would move and sway on again 
in their weird, monotonous dance, weeping, and 
groaning, and lamenting, under the awful compul- 
sion of the Infinite Spirit. Some were livid and 
convulsed, as with fever or epilepsy; their sightless 
eyes were starting from their sockets, their teeth 
chattered, and their lips quivered and foamed. Others 
were illuminated with a rapt and deathly smile of 
idiotic beatitude, and others still showed only the 
whites of their eyes, were pallid and stiff, and moved 
like galvanized corpses. 

^Tind, brothers! Find!’’ 

And as they still did not find, they became more 
and more giddy in their motions and frantic in their 
looks and gestures. They tottered and swayed, and 
ran to and fro like drunken men, uttering hideous 
and obscene sounds — the grunting of swine, the 
harsh laughter of hyenas, the melancholy bark of 
jackals, any sound but a sane human cry. 

‘Tind, brothers! Find!” 

At last two women — for there were women among 
them — in draggled white, with streaming, dis- 
hevelled hair, and the faces of furies, dashed past 
Ali where he stood on the threshold of the hall, as if 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


321 


with' a half-conscious desire to defend it. The whole 
crowd swayed and pressed and followed, as a flock 
of sheep follows one of its members that has found 
or has made an opening in a fence. 

'Tind, brothers! Find!’’ 

It was a cry of triumph then, as they spied Molly 
still standing white and rigid by the dais, like a bride 
by the altar. The two furies, with a wild yell, flew 
at her, and in a second or two she was the centre of 
an obscene, surging throng. She stood erect and 
defiant and white, till they began to tear the garments 
from her tender flesh. The consummation of her 
punishment was too abominable. The bitterness of 
desertion and base death was upon her, and she gave 
vent to a heartrending cry : 

Ali!” 

Then a fierce revulsion of feeling swept tlirougfi 
Ali’s breast. If he was a barbarian he was generous, 
if he was half a savage he was wholly a man. He 
saw the woman standing white whom he had loved 
and embraced in love, he saw her gleaming bare 
shoulders as the obscene furies plucked at her, he 
heard her terror-stricken appeal to him, and he 
bounded in among the stinking mass of saintliness 
and fanaticism. He was strong, and fearless; and 
fierce. He struck down without hesitation or re- 


822 


THE GEEETir THRBAHS. 


morse tHose wHo were m his way and trampled on' 
them. But to tell the truth, they opposed him little : 
and they bowed down under his blows, for was 
he not the Grand Shereef and a leader of their 
order ? 

“Ah, my beautiful one!’' he cried, impetuously. 
“I come to thee, my dear sinner !” 

He flung off the furies, as if they were huge dis- 
gusting leeches, and took Molly in his arms, where 
she trembled and clung. But while his back was 
thus turned, an old, old man with a knife, and the 
visage of distracted Lear, tottered forward and fell 
upon Molly with his gleaming weapon. Ali flung 
off the old wretch, and you could hear his bare skull 
crack on the tiled floor. There was a hushed pause 
among the fanatics. 

“Oh !” gasped Molly, turning her eyes on her hus- 
band. “That is death, I know! Say quickly you 
forgive me, my husband, my lord, and I die happy! 
I am very, very sorry for what I have done !” 

“Sweet sinner,” said Ali, “I forgive!” He 
kissed her on the lips — at which action there arose 
from the swaying, maddened throng a howl of rage 
and horror. “But I shall die with thee !” added Ali. 

He laid her on the dais, and was about to rise, 
when another old man, who might be the brother 


THE GREEN TURBANS. 


323 


of him who had been flung off, rushed at him with 
the roar of a beast, and struck him with a knife. 
He would have struck again, had not a form, swift 
and beautiful as a tigress, slipped between him and 
his victim. It was Alula, unarmed, but blazing with 
fury. She thrust off the old man, and stood erect, 
protecting Ali. 

^‘Go forth, vermin, scum she cried. 

She was like one possessed — like one of the 
Aissowie themselves. But in her madness she had 
a touch of craft. She took the two furies by the 
hand and led them out of the hall, the whole crowd 
following, swaying and dancing again, moaning and 
crying. 

‘Tound, brothers! Found!” 

In a little while they were out of the castle and 
the courtyard, and streaming away down the valley. 

The whole episode had taken less than half-an- 
hour. It came, surged, and was gone; and the only 
evidence that it had not been a vividly evil dream 
was the dead body of Molly on the dais of the hall, 
and the wounded Ali sitting by. 

Dr. Neale, who had been shut away with the 
damaged De Courcel in another part of the castle, 
knew nothing of the terrible scene till it was past. 


324 


THE GKEEN TUEBANS. 


That evening there rode in haste into tHe valley 
a numerous cavalcade. At its head was Sir Edward, 
the English Ambassador, and of the company was 
Miss Cameron, the seer of visions and practitioner 
of palmistry. They rode into the castle and were 
received by the doctor in Ali’s name; for Ali had 
been put to bed with his wound in a raging fever, 
and he was being nursed by the devoted Alula. 

*T always thought,^’ said Miss Cameron, ‘‘that girl 
was in love with him.” 

Then it became evident — from the story of the 
Ambassador and Miss Cameyon, which the dead 
Molly might have corroborated — that it was love 
also that had brought Miss Cameron so far. For 
once she had seen a vision without being prompted. 
She had dreamed that she had seen her friend, De 
Courcel, lying prostrate on a shining floor, while a 
ferocious man in a green turban stood over him with 
a gleaming scimitar. Her vision had so much 
affected her, and her concern for her friend, De 
Courcel, was so overwhelming, that she came with 
all speed to Tangier to tell her dream to the Ambas- 
sador and to seek his advice. 

“And have you, an Englishwoman, or, at least, a 
Scotswoman,” exclaimed the frank Dr. Dick, “come 
all this way to find an unworthy Frenchman ?” 


-THE GEEEN TURBAlSrS. 325 

^^Sad, isn’t it ?” said Miss Cameron. “But I have 
always had a weakness for things that were un- 
worthy my attention — like my poor friend, the 
Princess !” 

“It grieves me,” said the Ambassador, “that I 
have not been in time to save the lady from the attack 
of these obscene creatures. She was a brave and 
charming creature, and extremely devoted to her 
husband.” 

“Yes,” said the doctor, with hesitation. “But, on 
the whole, it is as well asjt is. She would not have 
lived happily with her husband.” (That was his 
only allusion to her terrible crime.) “Those mixed 
marriages are always a mistake in the end.” 

The Ambassador said nothing, for a little; for 
he was of the doctor’s opinion regarding such mar- 
riages. At length he spoke. 

“If Ali wishes to settle down among his own 
people comfortably, he had better marry that love- 
smitten girl who followed him to England, and 
who’s nursing him now. That would compose his 
quarrel with her father, and do away with all trouble 
he might have with the Sultan’s Government.” 

“I quite agree with you,” said the doctor. “Poor, 
poor Molly !” he murmured, presently. “Pooy 
Princess !” 


326 


THE GEEEN TUEBAHS. 


‘‘Yes/’ said the sympathetic Ambassador, “poor 
Princess Molly!” 

But he did not understand Dr. Neale’s deep, in- 
sistent tone of commiseration. 


THE END. 



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COPY DEL. TO CAT niv, 
HAY 28 1902 


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THE MANHATTAN LIBRARY 

OF NEW COPYRIGHT FICTION 

A. L. BURT COMPANY.^ 

i PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK ^ j 




















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